Ronnie James Dio died on Sunday. He was 67. As YNN's Bill Carey tells us, the roots of the rock star run deep in Central New York, in the town where he grew up, Cortland.

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In a career that spanned six decades, most knew this Ronnie James Dio, but for those who knew Ronnie Dio best, there were a variety of looks, of sounds, as his music evolved from soft sixties to heavy metal.

"He could sing anything," said David Feinstein.

David Feinstein was Dio's cousin and played alongside him in some of his local bands.

"He could have went in any direction. He could have went into mainstream. He could have went into country. He could have done anything because, vocally, he was capable of doing anything," Feinstein said.

But as his fame grew, his connections to home were never broken.

"He would come to Cortland and they would get together and have drinks and stuff like that. I think he maintained, as much as he could, a relationship with as many people back home as he could," Feinstein recalled.

This is the county office building in Cortland. It used to be the local high school. This is where Ronnie Dio, then known as Ronnie Padavona, went to high school. If you were looking for some heavy metal, anti-establishment figure to be roaming the halls back then, think again. Ronnie Padavona was a member of the National Honor Society. The president of the student council. A member of the science club.

Among pictures of doctors, lawyers, teachers, there on a Wall of Fame at Cortland High School is Dio.

"He was the person that we looked up to, that represented success. And if you try hard and you work hard at what you believe in, you'll make it, because he did," said Thomas Gath, a chemistry teacher.

Dio Way, the street named in his honor, showed signs of local tribute after word of his death.

He had toured until last fall when he became ill. The diagnosis? Stomach cancer. Months of treatment followed. He rallied briefly, but took a turn for the worse last week. Sunday morning, his wife, Wendy, told the world via his internet site that his voice had been silenced for good.

Feinstein, who had visited his cousin just weeks ago, said the prognosis had never been good, but death still came as a shock. And with it, a sense of loss, a loss of what Ronnie James Dio had planned for the future.

"There's a lot that could have been done in the future. I know he would have come up with some great things," Feinstein said.