You might give CFI out of Joplin Missouri a call about training. I've talked to a few of their drivers since they took the company back and they have all been happy with the company so far. Joplin isn't all that far from you and I don't know if they are still doing the same program since they reopened as CFI, but they used to put you up in the dorms at Crowder College in Neosho Mo and pay for you to go through the training there to get your CDL. That school is and has been one of the top training tech schools in the country. You will drive local streets and interstate both loaded and empty if it's still the same, and you not only learn to back on a cone course but you will back into real docks as well.
Now when Conway had the company, they only paid for $2000 of that school and you had to either pay for the rest or get a grant or scholarship to pay the rest, so I'm not real sure what CFI is doing on that front, but it would probably be worth a call at least. I don't work for them, I work for Freymiller out of OKC, but I have lived in small towns around Joplin all my life, so I know the company's history and have known a few of their drivers. They always seemed to treat their drivers, both new and old, good and fair.
As for the life of a driver, the others here have covered that and given you a pretty fair idea of what your getting yourself into. I'll never forget, I had some super trucker tell me once, on one of these forums no less and I have never met this person in real life, he told me six years ago that he could tell just from us arguing on the forums that I wouldn't make it out here and he would still be moving along not giving a crap. Your going to get that from some drivers, just blow then off and do it for you. What he didn't acknowledge even after I had told him, was that I had been driving class B trucks, which in most cases were there exact same trucks these super truckers are pulling a trailer with, but with the fifth wheel removed and a tank, box or dump bucket mounted on them instead, both local and over the road. My first sentence was I want to be a truck driver and from that point on I never waivered for forty years and when not driving straight truck I was still usually in jobs working closely with truck drivers. Now I have pulled dry box, water tanker, Frack pumps and reefers all over the country. I'm currently in the last year of a lease purchase pulling a reefer and making good money doing it and I'm the guy they call when someone else can't or won't make a delivery on time because this company knows I plan my days to the last minute and that if I don't make at least 650 miles in a day, something outside my control happened to hold me up. That's how you show these guys how to eat crow. I'm not afraid to gloat a little because if anyone doubts what I say, I will give them the phone number and extension to talk to both my dispatcher and my lease purchase coordinator to ask them about me. So what I'm saying is, yes, work your way into it, but plan on being that guy and you will get the miles while all the other whiners are sitting on their phones complaining.
With that said, and sorry for the long post. Now would be a good time to get started because right now until the end of March is the slow season for dry box and reefer which are the likely candidates for you to hire into, and just about the time you finish school and riding with a trainer would put you out right about the time that hopefully freight is picking up. I have a feeling the slow season is going to be really slow this year, but hey that's just my opinion. We shall see. I wish you the best of luck and hope you and yours and everyone on here have a very Merry Christmas and a great and profitable New Year.