He was mayor for eight years in the 1970s, helped found Benson's rescue squad and at one time ran more than two dozen companies. After his funeral, just as he had asked, a Benson ambulance took his casket to the cemetery, tailed by a colorful bus filled with the out-of-costume clowns who were his pallbearers.

For as hard as Hood worked to build his businesses and support Benson, he didn't love much more than entertaining children and just about everyone else as Happy the Clown.

Since the 1960s, Hood had been a member of the Sudan Dunn Clowns, a group of part-time jokers who raise money for the Shriners Children's Hospital. He eventually became chief clown.

"He never met a stranger, and he always had a smile on his face," said his son, Robin Whitley Hood II. "He couldn't have picked a better name than Happy. You wonder how he did it all."

Days after the former mayor's death, Ricky Barnes and other friends of Hood's sat late into the night telling his stories. "There's just no way to touch all the things he's done for people over the years," Barnes said.

As a businessman, Hood had owned Whitley Hood Insurance Agency, Robin Hood Truck Stop and Restaurant, Robin Hood Oil Co., Thermo King of Benson and Robin Hood Container, to name a few.

He was a force in local politics too. In the 1970s, he was a key figure in the successful effort to run Interstate 40 through Benson to Wilmington, and as mayor, he worked out a deal to draw water through Dunn from the Cape Fear River.

Decades ago, Hood came to Barnes' auto dealership, and the men picked out the cargo van that would become the town's rudimentary ambulance. He became chief of the squad, and people called him "Chief" until the day he died.

Plus, "he was the backbone of the clowns, really," said Barnes, a friend of almost 50 years. Hood was right at home as a clown: He got to help others while socializing like mad.

When the Shriner clowns traveled to towns for parades, politicians and businessmen would flock to the clown bus and its music, like children to an ice cream truck, looking for a handshake and a word with Whitley.

Hood used to ride a unicycle and dance on the hood of the tiny clown car he owned while his children drove.

In or out of costume, people loved Whitley, Barnes said. His employees stuck with him for decades, becoming members of the family, and his casual golf league became a Benson institution.

He was on the board of directors of Benson's annual gospel-singing convention too. On June 26, a News & Observer reporter interviewed him at the convention just hours before he suffered a fatal aneurysm.

Hood had suffered a stroke a few months before but had appeared to recover well. Even in the hospital after the stroke, he spread his hard-to-cap charm to everyone on the floor, his son said.

No matter where he was in life, Hood seemed to find a way to build something new, his son said. He and his wife, Lois Hood, were born on local farms and began adult life as schoolteachers. Through the years, Hood built legacies for himself and for Benson.

"He left some big shoes to fill," his son said. Clown shoes, in fact -- and the son wore his father's costume in a July 4 parade, a week after his death.