John Kluth, owner of , was surprised Sunday morning to receive a call from Robinson Memorial Hospital informing him that iconic Kent resident Robert Wood had died. Unbeknownst to Kluth, Wood had listed him as his emergency contact.

"They said it was a cardiac event and that he died pretty quickly, which is kind of a relief to me because as he has gotten older he's been more of a concern for how he took care of himself. I guess that's over now," Kluth said. Lt. Patrick Edwards of the confirmed that a squad responded to a 5:04 a.m. call to Woods' 401 Summit Gardens home and transported him to Robinson.

What happens next – in terms of a memorial service or what will become of Wood's decades of artwork – is a mystery to Kluth. "I don't know what my responsibility or role is. There is a lawyer in Ravenna … who should be contacted. I'm assuming he'll be able to straighten out the legalities of this to determine ... next of kin and so forth," Kluth said. "(Wood) was always by himself – and I really didn't ever pry into his personal affairs."

Kluth thinks Wood may have listed him as his emergency contact years ago, when Wood regularly used Kluth's art gallery phone and would give out the number as his own. "For a long time I was his phone number and received all his personal calls, from doctors and other people," Kluth explained. Wood had lived in Kent since the 1960s and had been active in the art scene since he stepped foot on this black squirrel soil, Elaine Hullihen reported in .

Wood moved to Kent from his hometown of Struthers, OH, and earned his bachelor's degree in studio art in 1968. That was followed by a master's degree in painting in 1973 from .

However, many Kent residents and Kent State students did not know Wood as an artist, but as the hippie-looking man who used to flip off passing motorists from various intersections in town. He developed a cult following of sorts for that behavior, and he told Hullihen last fall that he didn't like the resulting nickname.

Kluth and Wood got to know each other about 15 years ago, when Kluth's former Open Space Art Gallery was located in the Johnson Building on North Mantua Street, where Wood rented a small apartment. The 1906 building was demolished to make way for the Sheetz gas station at the intersection of North Mantua and Fairchild Avenue. "Having the gallery there was a great convenience to Robert. He would come in and use the phone and the computer, so he was there a lot," Kluth said, adding that Wood moved to Summit Gardens when the Johnson Building was sold.