John Weston McPhail
(Pictured with Danny Devito)

DOB: 12/24/41
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 275

John ("Johnny") McPhail was born in Burlington, North Carolina, to Weston Earl McPhail, a teller with Carolina National Bank, and Judith Longman McPhail, a homemaker. McPhail, the eldest of four children, attended North Burlington High School, where he was class president for his freshman and sophomore years; he was on the yearbook staff and played varsity basketball. A hardworking student, McPhail showed an aptitude for mathematics. He matriculated at Duke University in Chapel Hill, N.C., in the fall of 1959, and majored in economics, and received his B.S. in 1963. He entered Duke's Fuqua School of Business the next fall, but left after the first semester to join the accounting firm of Malmouth, Howell, and Stern in Chapel Hill. While working as a junior manager at the firm, he met Adele Howell, and they were married in June of 1967.

In 1972, Johnny and Adele moved to Oxford, where he and college friend Arthur Elias established a small bookkeeping and accounting service. The McPhails' only child, Ruth, was born in 1973; she won a sports scholarship to Stanford University in 1991, and settled in the San Francisco area after graduating with a degree in computer science. Adele has worked in the Spanish department of the University of Mississippi as an administrative coordinator since 1980.

McPhail has served on the Oxford Chamber of Commerce, and with his wife helps coordinate the Oxford Public Library's annual book sale and fundraising event.

McPhail's sister, Anne, 53, is an entertainment lawyer based in Sherman Oaks, CA. His brother Tom, 49, lives in Burlington and works as a contractor. Colin McPhail, born in 1951, was killed in combat in the Vietnam War.