One of 14 children born into the family of Curtis and Hazel Chambers of Mariana Arkansas. Billy Joe and his twin Joe Edward were born in 1962 on a 40 acre parcel of land located near the southern tip of La Grange county. For much of his youth Billy Joe witnessed his mother, father and older siblings eak out a meager existance sharecropping the land in the black belt area. The entire Chambers clan was raised in an old rickety threee bedroom wood-framed house without such amenities as hot water and indoor plumbing. The abject poverty in which Billy Joe and his family lived bred a natural instinct to try anything in order to obtain an easier life in which the so called finer things were attainable. Billy Joe Chambers exibited a natural entrepernurial spirit as a young man taking on several other jobs around Marianna cutting lawns, taking care of chickens, hogs and other farm animals for neighbors in exchange for a small amount of money in return. Billy Joe Chambers also hustled in the pool halls of Lee County Arkansas with his father Curtis who would line up unsuspecting men with the taunt of my little boy can outshoot you in pool. The average take from these Disgusted by the lack of oppurtunity in Marianna, Billy Joe Chambers dropped out of Lee Senior High and moved
