The Routons Of Henry County, TN

After graduation from Grove High School, where he was president of the 1934 senior class, he received a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where he was a member of the varsity track team and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. 
 

In 1943, he volunteered for military duty in the U.S. Navy.  He 
served a year  overseas as a seaman then returned to attend midshipman school in Columbia University in New York City. 


After completing midshipman school, he was a line officer on a tank landing craft.  He received the Okinawa Battle Star and was discharged in 1946. He remained in the Naval Reserve until 1951. 
 

Routon was a purchasing agent for the War Department in Washington, D.C., and Sioux Ordnance Depot in Sidney, Nebraska, 
before returning to Paris to be associated 
with his parents in the Routon Florist Business. 


Later he assumed a farming interest 
which he maintained until his death.  


  He retired in 1981 as business counselor for the State of Tennessee serving all  counties in West Tennessee except Shelby. 


On June 2, 1940, he was married to 
the former Val Rucker, who survives.