In an “extraordinary” and heartbreaking coincidence, the “Bradman of local government” from Peak Hill has died five years to the day his mate and former Dubbo MP Tony McGrane succumbed to cancer.
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A mayor among mayors, Robert Wilson, 67, was killed in a two-car collision on the Orange Road near Parkes on Tuesday afternoon.
In life the two men forged a productive relationship based on community service that bore each of them an Order of Australia Medal.
Mr Wilson, a pallbearer for Mr McGrane, was part of a huge contingent of Parkes people to attend his funeral.
Yesterday morning, with a heavy heart, Dubbo residents were gearing up for a reciprocal journey.
Bob Berry, faithful friend and supporter of Mr McGrane, honoured by an in memoriam advertisement in the Daily Liberal on Tuesday, described the September 15 deaths, five years apart, as “extraordinary”.
“In these tragic circumstances, Tony and Robert will be reunited,” Mr Berry said.
“They’ll be a strong political presence in heaven.”
Mr McGrane’s successor Dawn Fardell, who called Mr Wilson both friend and mentor, headed to Parkes at first light yesterday morning to visit his grieving family with Parkes mayor Ken Keith.
After contact from policy hierarchy on Tuesday evening, Mrs Fardell had to break the news of Mr Wilson’s death to his former colleagues on Parkes Shire Council at their monthly meeting.
“It was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do,” she said.
After 43 years in local government, 24 of them as a mayor never challenged for the position, the man dubbed “the Bradman of local government” by former NSW premier Morris Iemma retired from council a year ago.
Coming from “good local stock”, with a mother who lived beyond 100, community expectations were high that Mr Wilson and his devoted wife Vicki had plenty of time to spend together on their Peak Hill property and with their family, including two children and two grandchildren.
“That’s one of the saddest things about all of this,” Mrs Fardell said.
It is understood that Mrs Wilson, worried that her husband was late getting back from his first meeting as a member of the Central West Regional Development Australia committee, drove out to the Orange Road after hearing of a crash.
The Newell Highway Taskforce abandoned his scheduled meeting yesterday at news of the death of the man who chaired the roundtable talks that resulted in its formation.
Mayor Keith, elected for another term in the hours before receiving the “devastating” news on Tuesday night, said the town’s residents felt they had “lost someone out of their own families”.
Parkes Shire Council staff, like Mrs Fardell, struggled with their emotions when approached by the Daily Liberal.
Cr Keith said a major component of Mr Wilson’s legacy would be his determined bid to make Parkes the “logistics hub of Australia”.
“His contribution is unique and unparalleled,” Cr Keith said.
Mr Berry yesterday recalled how as the mayors of communities with competing interests, Mr McGrane and Mr Wilson didn’t always see eye to eye.
The late MP used to laugh that when he first stood for the seat of Dubbo in 1999, he was “probably as welcome in Parkes as Osama bin Laden”.
But in time the two leaders would form a “wonderful association” that helped Mr McGrane across the line in Parkes at the 2003 poll.
In the 1990s Mr Wilson was unsuccessful in an independent candidature for the Federal seat of Parkes.
At a rally in Dubbo he was supported by Peter Andren, another high-profile regional politician taken too soon.
An appeal to the NSW Government for a State funeral for Mr Wilson was mooted yesterday.