Each fall semester, Drake University welcomes Ross Robinson and his wide selection of posters to campus. Robinson’s posters range from movie posters such as “The Matrix” and “Back to the Future” to sports posters like Michael Jordan’s “Last Shot” to gaming posters such as the fictional brand of Nuka Cola from the video game “Fallout.”
Students at Drake visit Robinson each year and browse the wide selection of posters that he offers, often buying some to decorate their residence hall rooms. Junior Natalie Parkins has been coming to Robinson since her first year at Drake to buy posters from him. She said coming to the sale has become something of a tradition for her.
“I think it’s just the wide options that they have for everyone, and I give them as Christmas presents,” Parkins said.
Senior Chelsea Olinger has seen Robinson’s posters during her time at Drake, but finally decided to start buying some in her final year. She said that since this is her final year at Drake, she decided to buy some anime posters after seeing students look at them over the years.
Over the years, Robinson has come back to Drake and interacted with students about different types of posters that they are interested in and want to buy. It’s become almost a tradition since Robinson started coming to Drake in 2021.
Robinson sold posters for decades before he came to Drake. His original product was not posters; instead, he sold vinyl records.
“I had a record store in New York City, and the record store was averaging $500 a day,” Robinson said. “I decided to put all the records in a big truck and take it to Lehigh University for a special festival they were having.”
At this festival, Robinson found that he made more money in a few short days than he would have at his storefront.
“The students spent over $2,000 on the first day, and I said ‘Well, why should I have a store that’s averaging $500 a day, when on my very first day I already did $2,000?’” Robinson said. “So I closed the record store and took the records on a tour of America’s universities in 1980.”
After selling records at colleges for a couple of years, business started to slow down with the introduction of the CD in the early 1980s. That’s when Robinson pivoted away from records.
“A couple years later, these new CDs came out and no one wanted the records anymore, everyone wanted the new CDs,” Robinson said. “They were very expensive cause they were new and hard for me to make a profit with, so I switched over to the posters.”
Since Robinson switched over to selling posters in 1982, he has done extensive traveling across the country to different colleges. His work extends far beyond what he does for one week a year at Drake.
“I have done at least five different universities in every state in all of the continental United States at some point to try and see where I liked best,” Robinson said.
While Robinson has visited many universities across the country, he doesn’t always go back to the same place twice.
“I’ve [visited] over 1,000 universities in the last 45 years, but I don’t go to all of them all of the time because some of them didn’t give me good locations and/or gave me poor business,” Robinson said. “So, I go to the ones that I like best.”
Prior to 2021, Robinson hadn’t visited Drake for over a decade due to a lack of communication from the Student Activities Office. After a change in leadership starting in 2021, Drake invited him back to campus.
After better communication with the Student Activities Office, Robinson concludes his fourth consecutive year visiting. He hopes to return in the future, with more students who shop his selection of posters.
