MANKATO — “He was a titan!” one man said.

“A gift from God,” said another.

And a third called the loss of Truman Wood akin to losing a member of her family.

Wood, a longtime political science professor at Minnesota State University, founder of a scholarship fund, and mentor and friend to many both inside and outside the campus community, died Monday at age 77.

He had been hospitalized a few days after Thanksgiving with complications from diabetes, which he had lived with for 62 years. He’d also suffered a heart attack and came down with pneumonia while in the hospital.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m Jan. 5 at Centenary United Methodist Church in Mankato.

A Delavan native, Wood taught at MSU from 1961 until his retirement in 1991. He earned a bachelor’s degree from then-Mankato State Teachers College. He held a master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Iowa.

Tim Berg, MSU’s campus chaplain, was a student of Wood’s. He remembers a day back in 1960s when, as a student, he visited Wood in his office.

As the two left Wood’s office, they spied a young woman down the hall who appeared to have been crying.

“He says to me, ‘Berg, just wait a minute.’ And he walks over to her, bends over and visits with her just for a minute or two. I said, ‘Gee, do you know her?’ He said ‘No, she just looked like she was having a bad day. I gave her my office number and told her to stop by my office.’”

Berg says he learned a lesson that day.

“All the time, that’s how he was with students. He cared about people so much. There he was, mid conversation with me, and off he goes to a complete stranger,” Berg said. “All through my 37 years of teaching and ministry, I’ve never forgotten it. It’s the kind of thing I’ve always tried to do, and it’s because of Truman.”

After retirement, Wood and his wife, Reta Hoover Wood, established the Wood Community Leadership Scholarship for undergraduate majors in political science. (Reta had taught for 25 years at Kennedy Elementary School.)

The scholarship, unique in its scope and oversight at MSU, is given to one or two political science students during their junior year. The goal is to fund their education during their senior year so they’ll be available to pursue the kinds of community service or volunteer work that got them the scholarship in the first place.

The fund is now worth more than a quarter of a million dollars, and the program is overseen by an advisory board composed of former Wood Scholars and former students of Wood.

But Wood went far beyond just administering a scholarship. Susan Taylor, development director the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, witnessed Wood’s handling of this scholarship fund and calls him and his work nothing short of remarkable.

“The ones who got that scholarship were very lucky because Truman and Reta pulled those students into their family,” Taylor said.

When he asked how you were doing, he meant it. When he said he’d keep in touch, he did it. He knew the names of all his scholarship recipients and made a point to keep up to date on their lives. One scholarship recipient, Taylor recalls, named her first child Truman.

“Truman had this way of making every one of us feel like we were so special to him,” Taylor said. “He was always very interested in what you were doing and about your family. He was always interested in what you thought about things. He made everybody feel good.”

In a university-issued statement, Jeff Wood, Truman’s son, said, “My father valued few things more than his association with the university.”

During Wood’s final days, he had many visitors. Jeff Wood sang to him the MSU rouser, recalling the many days they’d spent together cheering on Maverick football in the cold stands of Blakeslee Stadium.

Taylor said she visited him during the weekend, and Wood told her he was ready to leave, and he was satisfied that he’d had a good life.

Berg’s last talk with Wood was last week. He left Wood’s room that day comfortable that Wood knew how Berg felt about him. He even flashed the thumbs-up sign as Berg headed for the door.

Good thing, too. Because on Monday, when Berg got word that Wood’s time was running out, he hurried to the hospital to try to say goodbye, but he was too late.

He spent a few moments with Wood anyway, happy that’d already said what needed to be said.