About

Gene was born October 4, 1950, in Greenwood, South Carolina. His mother, Barbara Dyal Robinson, always claimed, Joe DiMaggio, N.Y. Yankees, hit a homerun that afternoon in the World Series Game. Named after his father, Eugene Davy Robinson Jr., “Little Gene” always kept up with the Yankees team as a child. He could recite the starting players by name and position for years, so there had to be something relevant that on the day he was born, Joe cracked a homer.

Moving to Calhoun County in 1956 and growing up in the “country” on top of Camp Cottaquilla mountain outside of Jacksonville, this skinny “country” boy spent his youth outside for the most part, riding bikes, throwing rocks, and playing football. He loved his home, his life, his friends and brothers. Attending Jacksonville schools through the 7th grade, he was an average boy who hated school and could not wait for each summer to begin. Bored in school he read a series of orange-colored biography books, which gave his love of American History and the leaders and others who shaped this history. During the short summer months he played outside in the Alabama woods, if he was not on a baseball field in Jacksonville.

In the eight grade he went to Anniston’s Johnson Junior High, so he could work at his dad’s store in Anniston. So from the eighth through the eleventh grade he was in the Anniston School system at Johnson and the Quintard Anniston High School. Still a shy, skinny kid from Jacksonville, he blended in and stayed out of trouble. but still did not care for school, rather he began to like retail business. He had always worked at his Dad’s business on weekends, since he was eight years old. He remembers at eight, starting the day sweeping the store, to the TV display area and stopping to watch TV, especially enjoying the Three Stooges, who reminded him of his brothers. By his senior year in high school, he was making a whopping twenty five cents and hour, working by assembling bikes, wagons, trikes, and lawn mowers on his break from being a salesperson and the secretary’s General Hospital on TV.

After graduating high school in Jacksonville in 1968 and a stint at Jacksonville State University, he joined the Navy during the Vietnam war in 1972. Serving in Washington D.C. for four years, he attended University of Maryland night school and continued studying his only two interests in college that being Economics and History. After an honorable discharge from the Navy, he came back home to live in good old Alabama, he came home to work in the family business; what he enjoyed most in live, along with Alabama football and Auburn football unless they played each other. He liked selling lawn mowers, appliances, tires and batteries, and eventually toys. All it took was being away a few years in the military to know how much he missed Alabama and his community Calhoun County, not to mention the store he was to take over.

Business milestones include the move to current location at 1000 noble street, in February, 1998 and today we are 52 years old in business in Anniston, Alabama, which is quite a feat, considering the fact that in the last eight years so many family oriented long-term businesses have gone out of business in Anniston. Hall building after 66 years, OK Tire and Berman-Gayles and Kitchen’s Department Store and LeJax Appliances all over 50 years old have closed their doors forever and nothing has taken their places. These business closings the past eight years have affected Gene like a slap in the face. He knows it could be Western Auto or any business in Anniston, because city officials have not been concerned about small business since Howell, became Mayor in 2000. The big thing like not modernizing the business license fees, the small things like not passing any parking ordinances has left Noble Street and connecting streets a wild west show parking-wise.

Currently, Gene Robinson is serving as Mayor of Anniston.