WELL known fruit grower and community worker, John Corboy has sadly passed after a long battle with illness. John was aged 71.
John started from humble beginnings to become one of the Goulburn Valley’s largest fruit producers with over 300ha of apple, pear and stone fruit orchards before his business met with failure.
Mr Corboy was a strong advocate for a number of community charities in the region as well as securing major infrastructure projects to come to fruition.
Jim Andreadis delivered a eulogy at his funeral in Brisbane recently.
“I was lucky enough to meet John over 25 years ago when I first arrived in Shepparton and we hit it off immediately, we saw the world very similarly, and shared many values. We worked together to help establish the GV Community Fund, the Bridge Youth Services, Ladders to Success (an indigenous employment program) and countless other community initiatives.
I also watched him battle to save the SPC fruit cannery, get funding to our region for the GV Highway widening and keeping New Zealand apples out due to Fire Blight, a disease that could have been introduced to the region. John advocated fiercely for funding to modernise the GV’s ageing irrigation, its success bringing $2 billion to our region.
I’d call John a leviathan of our region.
These were the achievements everyone saw, but I was privileged to see so much more. At times when business was tough, he’d tell me that “it mightn’t look like it, but I’m rich”, and then he’d proceed to explain why, I’ve got Kerry, three sons, daughters in law and however many grandchildren he had at the time. And I’m sure he meant it.
John was always helping someone out- staff members who had fallen on hard times, going into bat for a farmer or business person being unfairly treated by financiers, government or bureaucracy. He was always able to come up with a cunning plan, a win-win, or lose the least outcome. John was the quintessential strategist and could always hatch a plan to make things better. And while he was saving the “World”, his business, his family and most likely his own needs were being kicked into the long grass.
I never worked out if John’s appearance, unshaven, dressed in his customary flannel shirts with cut off sleeves and buttons in the wrong holes, was the result of how busy he was helping others, or a deliberate attempt to be underestimated.
Peter Johnson, a great friend of both John and I, asked me to share his thoughts: he said, “John is one of the finest people I have known. In addition to my appreciation for everything that he brought to our community, I had the greatest admiration for his demeanour, and his calmness at moments of stress and crisis, and the fact that he treated everyone with respect no matter the manner in which they presented to him. Truly a wonderful man.”
John was a staunch and true friend and a great human being, fighting the good fights and standing up for the underdog, and for what was right.
The Goulburn Valley has had a decade to get used to John not being around. Those of us who were lucky enough to really know him will need considerably longer.
Goodbye John, you are already missed.”
