Kevin Andrews has a lot of love in his soon to turn 90-year-old heart for the town of Kyabram.
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And the town, if it is at all possible, has loved him right back.
As a successful businessman, former local government representative and mayor, board member and relentless volunteer with various community organisations, he deserves the affection that is afforded to him by several generations of Kyabram residents.
While love may not be entirely the right word to describe the long list of roles he has held in the town for what is approaching 70 years, it is most definitely the right word when it comes to describing his feeling for his wife of 63 years, Beryl.
KEVIN RANKS KYABRAM’S GREAT CONTRIBUTORS
These are the men Kevin Andrews says were keys to the development of Kyabram as he was coming through the ranks of community leadership:
Henry Wood: He created the swimming pool, as anyone who has read the plaque on the wall will know. He also ran the Knights store.
Ken King: Was a key figure in the development of Warramunda, was the councillor who recruited Kevin into local government and the man behind the development of King’s Tuckerbag.
Tom Tehan: As chairman of the hospital board and a candidate for government, he had a significant impact on the town. He was also principal at Morrison and Sawers, which was a major contributor to the town.
Leo Slattery: Chairman of the Kyabram Housing Development Committee and another Morrison and Sawers employee who was one of the major figures involved in development of Kyabram Fire Brigade.
Brian Turnbull: Long time secretary of the fire brigade, another senior Morrison and Sawers figure. Was a renowned figure for Kyabram people who relied on his legal expertise.
John Pilley: Yes, you guessed it, another Morrison and Sawers employee. He was a solicitor who had a lot to do with the formation of the Kyabram Fauna Park. It was originally called the lake committee, John was chairman and he pushed the committee toward establishing a fauna park (hence Pilley Reserve).
Bill McMaster-Smith: A famous Kyabram name, councillor for Rodney Shire and hospital board member. He was also a long time businessman and for many years was Kevin’s boss. He sold Kelvinator refrigerators and Ford tractors, so interacted with most people - whether they lived in town or on the land .
Fred Billings: He worked as an accountant for McMaster-Smith and was a renowned philanthropist, giving away a lot of his money to the town. He was at McMaster-Smith’s when Kevin started in 1954.
He lost Beryl, the mother of his three children, 2½ years ago and it has been the most challenging time of his life — despite him having an extraordinary network of friends regularly checking in on his wellbeing.
Love is also definitely the right way to describe his affection for his eight grandchildren.
Portraits of him with four of his generational offspring are scattered on his office desk in his 20-year-old Goegan Drive home.
The office is testament to his commitment to the town, a dozen framed certificates of life membership, long service and various other forms of recognition on the wall.
Considering he left school when he was 14, Kevin’s education was very much a “community effort” and his now immense knowledge of life and how to successfully negotiate its many challenges was obtained through real life experiences — rather than in the classroom.
Kevin’s parents, Perc and Vera May (known more as Doll to her friends) arrived in Merrigum as newly weds.
They were attracted to the area because of the family history to the area.
Kevin explained that one of his ancestors, James Andrews, had settled land in Merrigum and his labourer father and housewife mother were inspired by the connection.
Kevin is the fifth of seven children, four who are deceased and two who are still living in the area
His brother, Bruce, lives in Merrigum and is 82, while his 87-year-old sister Margaret is in aged care at Sheridan.
For many years, prior to developing his home in Goegan Drive, Kevin based himself out of a work shed in Outram Ave — just around the corner from where he now lives.
That’s where he has spent the past 39 years making toys for charity.
His wise investments allowed him to buy a business in 1969, at the start of a recession.
‘’After that we built the furniture store, then I bought a shop in the Albion Arcade and another shop which is now the site of coffee shop, Burnt Butter,’’ he said.
His shrewd investment skills led to him buying a farm on South Boundary Rd, which he has since sold.
While never straying far from Kyabram, he has travelled widely, to Canada, London and throughout Europe where he and his wife visited their three children who all worked overseas at one time or another.
Kevin will turn 90 on March 23.
He was born at Kyabram in 1934 and educated at Merrigum State School before he joined Bill McMaster-Smith’s business as a tractor mechanic in 1954.
His move to Kyabram was softened by him landing at Mrs (Mary) Neale’s (mother of well known Kyabram identity John Neale) boarding house in Allan St.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since his arrival into the town and those pursuits have made him a household name.
He first entered public life in the early 1970s when he won a spot on council after becoming “too old” for Apex and choosing to tackle the role as a councillor to the Borough of Kyabram.
Three years later he became the youngest mayor of the Town of Kyabram and less than a year after that was at Government House in Melbourne as a guest of then Victorian Governor Sir Henry Winneke for a special meeting with King Hussein of Jordan.
Kevin himself could claim “royal” status for his contributions over a seven-decade period to the development and ongoing prosperity of his beloved Kyabram.
Come to think of it, King Kevin of Kyabram, has a nice ring to it.
Kevin Andrews, the mechanic, joined the firm of W. McMaster-Smith as a 20-year-old in 1954, not long after he had completed national service.
It was then that he met his wife-to-be Beryl and was married four years later.
He said his wife’s death had come as a result of her having had polio as a child.
Kevin’s decision to offer up a few details of his nine decades on the earth has come from him eventually plucking up the courage to sort through cupboards following his wife’s passing and finding photo albums and old paper clippings.
“I keep everything, but I came across these albums while I was going through the cupboards,’’ he said.
“When Barry Churches told me about an Apex reunion I started rummaging around a bit and found a box full of stuff.”
Kevin also had a recent reminder of just how much water had gone under the bridge when he attended a reunion of the now defunct Kyabram Apex Club — of which he was a foundation member in 1957.
While we are at it, now’s probably as good a time as any to take a deep dive into just how and who Kevin has touched since throwing his hand into the air at that first Apex club meeting.
Seventeen years after joining Apex he became a life member, he was a member of the original Fauna Park Committee of Kyabram and a Borough of Kyabram and Town of Kyabram councillor for nine years.
He also presided over Kyabram’s Centenary celebrations as mayor of the town in 1976.
He was chairman of the Kyabram High School advisory council, a Shire of Campaspe Economic Development Board member and a 20-year chairman of the Wilf Cox Community Complex Committee.
He has been chairman of the Kyabram Club Board of Directors, was named Campaspe Shire’s Citizen of the Year in 2004 and, with Beryl, owned and operated Kyabram Rural Mart before starting Andrews Furniture.
For 50 years he has been a Justice of the Peace (14 years as a bail justice) and was a member of the Streetscape Committee and Walkway Mural Committee for more than a decade.
If you’re tired just reading this long list of achievements, imagine living it — but there is more.
He was involved in the Old Mates program at the Kyabram P-12 College and a four-year Town Hall volunteer.
He has also been involved in the Beacon Foundation at St Augustine’s College and — this will make you laugh — in his spare time has been making wooden toys for charity since the 1960s.
His astute nature and business brain has ensured he has not walked away from a lifetime of working, alongside his volunteer contributions, empty handed.
He was among the first to build a home in the now heavily-populated Goegan Drive and still owns other real estate in the town.
As you can imagine, the far reaching and long term involvement of Kevin in a variety of groups has left him with a long list of friends
Some of those will be making the trip to Kyabram Club on Saturday, March 23 for his birthday lunch.
What started out as an event for family and close friends has blown out to 70.
“Luckily I caught up with a lot of people at the Apex Club event, so I could afford to cut back a bit,” he said.
Kevin has left his indelible stamp on a lot in Kyabram, including the building that housed his furniture business for many years and is now the base of M&S Accounting.
And he remains the youngest mayor of Kyabram, having been convinced to throw his name into the ring at the suggestion of another well respected Kyabram businessman, supermarket giant Ken King.
During an address to Legacy in 2004, the same year he was crowned Kyabram’s top citizen, he offered his thoughts in a more in-depth fashion on when invited to a meeting as guest speaker.
His subject matter revolved around volunteering, something he believes he inherited from his parents — both life members of Merrigum Football Club.
“Mum was also president of the 3SR Friendship Club for more than 50 years and both Dad and I were members of the Merrigum Fire Brigade,” he said.
Going through his notes there were a number of “nuggets” that jumped off the page and offer an explanation as to just how big an impact Kevin has had in improving his surrounds.
As part of the development committee he helped to secure $390,000 in Victorian Government funding for an education centre at the fauna park and successfully lobbied for automatic teller machines in the town.
He was a 33-year member of the development committee that funded a concept design for Allan St and an integral voice of the inaugural Warramunda management committee.
Nowadays he keeps well in tune to what is happening in “his“ town, but more at arm’s length.
He is still making the wooden toys for charity, from his Goegan Dve work shed, but that is only in the morning and the middle cushion of his front room couch is his favourite spot in the afternoon.
While he leaves the daily chores mostly to his housekeeper, lawnmower and gardener, he still loves cooking for himself.
“I love cooking, so on that front I have no problem looking after myself,” he said.
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor