Is there a way I can only receive emails from a few contacts from an existing email acct. on my smart phone?

I have 1 email account (@sbcglobal.net). I don’t want to link my sbc account to my new smart phone. I don't want every email I get to show up on my phone. Way too much maintenance. I would prefer to only get emails from a select # of my contacts. Is this possible? Even if I had to open another email account....but I want my selected contacts to still use my sbc account and not have to have 2 email addresses for me. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks