Sharon

We’re spanning the state from east to west with the second mural in the campaign, located in Sharon, Tennessee, just 7 miles south of UT Martin and home to Robinson & Belew, Inc.

Founded in 1950, the family-run operation is the community’s largest business enterprise and ships corn, soybeans and wheat grown across the region to end-users around the world.

As the story goes, Bob Robinson established a small business near the railroad tracks in Sharon, Tennessee, during the first half of the 20^th century. He initially sold strawberries and coal and used the railroad to ship sweet potato slips throughout the United States. In 1950, he purchased the Sharon Feed Mill with his partner, A.L. Belew, and Robinson & Belew Grain was born. Robinson’s son, Robert Dean “R.D.” Robinson, earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1961 and came home to expand the business even further. 

The Robinson family boasts three generations of UT Martin ties beginning with R.D. and including his sister, Betty Robinson Eddings (’72); his wife, Dianne Palmer Robinson (‘71); daughter, Linda Robinson Fowler (‘85), and her husband, Keith (’85); and two of the Fowler’s three children: Chris in 2012 and Rachel in 2015. R.D. and Dianne Robinson recently established the R.D. and Dianne Robinson Agriculture Scholarship for agriculture students attending UT Martin.