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Private funeral Monday for former student shot by Ohio National Guard
Published on Sunday, Jun 15, 2008
Beacon Journal staff report
Robert ''Robby'' Stamps, one of 13 students shot by Ohio National Guardsmen during a Vietnam War protest May 4, 1970, at Kent State University, has died of complications from pneumonia.
Mr. Stamps, 58, died Wednesday in Tallahassee, Fla. A private funeral is scheduled for Monday at a friend's house. A memorial service is planned in San Diego.
Although the random bullet that struck him in the lower back colored his life for decades to come, Mr. Stamps lived an active professional life as a counselor, author, musician and inventor.
The residue of May 4 remained with him. And he often reflected on it.
''The guardsmen who killed four students and wounded nine others have neither told the truth nor been held accountable for their actions,'' he wrote in a guest editorial for the Akron Beacon Journal in March 1996.
Mr. Stamps grew up in a white-collar neighborhood in the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid. His father was a career military man who would have ''rather seen me go to jail than go to Vietnam to fight, and he told me so,'' Mr. Stamps was quoted as saying.
Fateful decision
Because Mr. Stamps suffered from Crohn's disease, his doctor advised him to attend a college within a 45-minute radius of home. He chose Kent State.
His goals were simple.
''I wasn't even thinking about my future,'' he was quoted as saying in Kent State's Burr magazine in 2000. ''I just wanted to graduate because I was used to spending every summer in the hospital.''
He double-majored in Spanish and sociology during an exciting time, he said: ''Students felt as if they had the power to change the world.''
He was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on the crowd at an anti-war rally at Kent State.
''Instinctively, I turned around and started to run away,'' he told the magazine. ''I took about three or four steps, and that's when it got me in the back.''
Mr. Stamps recalled sitting in the front seat of the ambulance for the ride to Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna. Behind him were Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, both of whom died from their wounds.
The next day, Mr. Stamps' parents took him to University Hospitals in Cleveland for care of the bullet wound that entered through his back, went down into his leg and broke his femur bone.
Eventually, Mr. Stamps returned to Kent State to finish his bachelor's degree, graduating magna cum laude.
Professional life
He continued his studies at KSU, earning a master's degree in sociology in 1975 and a master's degree in journalism and mass communication in 1999.
Mr. Stamps wore many hats in his professional life. He was a teacher and a counselor treating the alcohol and drug-addicted. He wrote three nonfiction books, including No Risk Used Car Buying in 2001. He also was a songwriter.
He ran a business calledauthorswanted.com to help others write manuscripts, find agents and publish their work.
In 2000, Mr. Stamps spoke out against plans to include a taped speech by convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal in the May 4 commemoration, fearing his comments would shift the focus of the annual event.
Toward the end of his life, Mr. Stamps was beset by Lyme disease. He and his wife, Teresa Sumrall, set up a Web site that asked for donations.
''The medical and associated costs to treat this illness are staggering,'' the Web site read.
Mr. Stamps never forgot about what happened at Kent State.
''What I thought about then is that we had a military industrial complex in charge of things, profiting handsomely from making war. And I think the same thing today,'' he told the Burr.
Mr. Stamps is survived by his wife.
Arrangements were being handled by Beggs Funeral Home in Madison, Fla.
Get the full article here.
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