Robert Luckie

Born in Clanton and raised in Montgomery, Luckie attended Birmingham-Southern College and, as a student writer for the school’s publicity office, received ten cents for every column inch he placed in the Birmingham papers. His predecessors made about $35 a month. Luckie didn’t think he could live on that and soon was earning $200 a month.

He had found his calling.

After serving as a communications officer in the Pacific with Admiral Chester Nimitz during World War II, Luckie returned to a job he had with The Birmingham News, working in both the editorial and advertising departments. "I wouldn’t take anything for my reportorial experience," says Luckie, but he wanted something different and made a bold professional change when he formed an advertising agency in 1953. Robert Luckie & Co. astounded the fledgling local industry by quickly securing
R. L. Ziegler, a major account. When an Atlanta agency stumbled with South Central Bell, Luckie brought that coveted account to Alabama. It was the beginning of a long association that yielded prize-winning advertisements, the most memorable of which featured Bear Bryant extolling the virtues of long distance and lamenting that he could no longer call his mama.

In 1964, the company he founded became Luckie & Forney Inc., when Hall of Famer John Forney joined the agency. Bob Luckie holds numerous awards and honors, and his agency has won the Clio, the advertising Oscar. In 1963, he was named Birmingham’s Advertising Man of the Year. That same year he received the Advertising Federation of America’s Printers Ink Silver Medal Award.

A member of the Birmingham Business Hall of Fame, he’s long been a vital part of his community, serving as an officer or board member for organizations such as the UAB School of Nursing, the Metropolitan Development Board, Birmingham-Southern College, United Way, and our own Board of Visitors. He’s shared with many the wise counsel and clear vision that enabled him to start a company that transformed the advertising industry in Alabama.

"If I had known how little I really knew, I probably wouldn’t have left the womb of The Birmingham News," he recalls. "But it worked out." Indeed, it did.