Robert A. May JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Robert (Bob) Arden

Robert A. May JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Robert (Bob) Arden May, age 76, of Jacksonville, Florida, passed away peacefully on Monday, November 18, 2024. He had recently developed multiple health complications. He was born on July 28, 1948, in Xenia, Ohio, to the late John & Mary (Jervis) May and grew up in both Xenia and Greenville, Ohio. He is survived by his sister, Lisa May-Turner (Dean) and brother James (Nikki) both of Jacksonville, and his son, Josh May of Atlanta (Farisa). In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his sister Susan (May) Lehman. He leaves Nieces and Nephews: Samantha May-Bannister and Christoper May, Katie Lehman and Stephen Lehman. Former wives Karen May, her son, Gabriel Weber and Debbie May, Josh’s mother. Bob graduated from Greenville High School in 1966. He briefly attended Tri-State University (now Trine University) in Angola, Indiana, moved to California and graduated as a philosophy major with a bachelor’s degree from University of California at Berkeley in 1974. Bob was a talented musician—piano/guitar—and songwriter. In 1978 he moved to Nashville, TN to start a career in music and ultimately formed the first of several entertainment and music related companies. After a brief stint as office manager of a small country label, Commercial Records, he founded music publishing company Deaf Monkey Music and Monkey Business, which in 1984 created and launched a board game about the music business with a pop country star’s endorsement: Kenny Rogers Presents the Record Game. In 1985 Bob moved to Atlanta and started Score Productions, a company that created and marketed music premiums for many Fortune 500 companies, including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Rebok, Hershey and Burger King. In 2005 he dissolved Score and started Tempo, Inc, (The Entertainment Marketing Promotion Organization) which continued his successful music premium business. Throughout his years in Nashville and Atlanta, Bob was an avid runner, participating in Atlanta’s Peachtree Road Race for twenty years as well as numerous marathons and four 50-mile runs. He was a reader of science and all things nature. Over the course of his adult life, he enjoyed the love and companionship of five malamutes. After retiring from his music business, Bob began writing poetry and in 2016 published a collection of poems, It Doesn’t Work That Way. At his passing, he was working on a book about the meaning of poetry.