JIM D. "TINY"  ROBISON

Virginia Beach –

Jim “Tiny” Robison died on June 7, 2003 in Virginia Beach, VA where he had lived for fifteen plus years.  He was born April 26, 1942.

Jim attended Alton schools where he got the nickname “Tiny” because he was the biggest kid in the seventh grade – a size that served him well on the football field where he was a tackle for the Alton (High) Redbirds. He also was an essential member of his junior high and high school basketball teams.  

“Tiny,” the boy and man, was a special person, whom teammates and classmates remember as a “gentle giant,” a teammate who could “push around” anyone the coaches asked him to on the playing field or court, but a gentle person who would do anything for you.  

Larry Donahue remembers Jim as “truly a pleasure to have him for a friend and a team mate. [He was]  “as strong as an elephant and as gentle as a lamb. I did not think anything could take him down.”

In the end, it was Jim’s big heart, the one that made him liked by so many people, that “took him down.” 

From Alton High, Jim went on to the University of Arkansas. It was neither sports nor academics, but a different kind of talent that would lead Jim to his primary vocation in life, carpentry. He was working as a carpenter in Virginia Beach at the time of his death.  Jim also worked as the Head of a Boys Club in Chicago, with problem kids in a juvenile correctional system, and as a fishing guide at Lake Geneva. At one time, he considered joining Green Peace to “Save the whales.”  

            Although an early marriage to a high school sweetheart did not work out, Jim told Donahue that “he had a special lady he was living with for over 15 years.”  

According to Donahue, “Jim loved Virginia Beach, especially a Park that sat up high in the hills and looked out over the ship yards.  The doctor told him that there was nothing they could do for his heart and that one day it would give out.” One day it did. He was found on the park bench where he liked to look out at the ships, “the big, gentle man was gone.”

            Although there has been no official obituary found for this much admired classmate, his legacy lives on in the numbers of persons who remember him as an extraordinarily talented, generous, gentle, and beloved friend.  We hope, Jim “Tiny” Robison that you finally know that you “made it” in the best way possible. We hope you know how much you are missed, dear friend and classmate.

[This unofficial obituary was compiled from information from Larry Donahue, Perry Coons, Mike Smith, Stanley McAfoos, and Rosemary “Twitty” Rickman. Written by Mhl]