Robert Joseph "Bobby Joe" Rose was born June 9, 1956 at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford, Mississippi. His father, Tate Rose, owns eight hundred acres of prime Yoknapatawpha County farmland where he grows soybeans and corn and tends an orchard of apples and peaches. His mother, Vicki Rose, is a registered nurse at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford. His younger brother, Richard, is an electrician and owns his own company, which specializes in providing wiring and plumbing for apartment complexes throughout Yoknapatawpha County.

Bobby Joe Rose Rose attended high school at Oxford University School and graduated in the spring of 1973. He entered The University of Mississippi that fall. Rose graduated from Ole Miss in 1977 and entered The University of Mississippi Law School in the fall of that year on a partial academic scholarship. In 1980, he graduated with honors from the law school, after serving on the staff of the University of Mississippi Law Journal and on its Moot Court Board.

Following graduation, Rose took a job with Oxford law firm of Milton & Milton, operated by the father and son team of Frank and David Milton. The firm specializes in both civil and criminal defense cases, and currently includes fourteen lawyers, most certified to practice in Tennessee and Alabama as well as Mississippi.

At first, Rose focused on civil litigation, representing the firm's countless wealthy clients whenever they were involved in divorces, land disputes, or other breaches of contract and he soon became the firm's top defense lawyer. He cemented his reputation when he successfully defended Napco, Inc., a local construction company, in a three million dollar unpaid wages suit filed by five of the contractor's former employees by proving the claimants had falsified their time records. Rose became a partner at Milton & Milton in 1989 and his name was added to the firm's in 1991.

Rose met Trudi Dyer, co-owner of Cupid's Couples, Inc., a dating service in Oxford, at an Oxford Chamber of Commerce meeting in the spring of 1993. After a whirlwind courtship, Rose and Dyer were married on October 9, 1993 at St. Peter's Episcopalian Church in Oxford. They have no children.

Rose is known as a shrewd businessman and is thought to be a multimillionaire. In addition to his successful law practice, he is a partner in BJT&K, Inc. with his wife and Kelly Clinton, co-owner of Cupid's Couples. BJT&K owns several rental properties in Yoknapatawpha County and a partial interest in Rewind Videos, a video rental store in Oxford.

Rose enjoys fishing, hunting, and camping in his spare time, and also volunteers at his church. For the last ten years, he has manned the cash box at St. Peter's Giant Pumpkin Sale each October, when the church buys a tractor trailer full of pumpkins and sells them to finance church youth activities.