Gaylon M. Lawrence (March 15, 1934 – July 10, 2012) was an American businessman and farmer. Lawrence owned more than 165,000 acres of farmland in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and was the owner of U.S. Airconditioning Distributors, the world's largest privately owned

heating, ventilation and air conditioning Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...

distributor. His family also owned five community banks and 30,000 acres of citrus farms, making his companies Florida's largest producer of fresh fruit. Lawrence graduated from Piggott Arkansas High School and from

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

in 1955 with a degree in agriculture/economics. From 1955 to 1960, he served in the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Gaylon M. 1934 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American farmers Citrus farmers from Florida Iowa State University alumni People from Piggott, Arkansas