David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to the late Roger Irwin Lynch of Forster, who unfortunately died suddenly in April. During his years at high school, Roger attended Taree High, where he was a very accomplished athlete. At aged 16 he had a serious car accident that left him a paraplegic for the rest of his life, but that didn't hold Roger back. After high school Roger went on to become a chartered accountant and worked with Alan Cowan, a very respected accountant in Taree. He opened his own branch in Forster and used his financial skills to benefit the community. He was inaugural treasurer and paymaster of Valley Industries, which is now almost the second-biggest private employer in the Manning Valley and Forster region. He was a foundation member of the Forster-Tuncurry Apex club. He married in 1972, to Jan, and set off for a working holiday in Europe. Whilst he was there, he devised a plan to play golf, which had been his abiding passion as a young man, for the next 45 years, developing a stool made to his own specifications. He became known as the man who sat down to play golf.

Roger joined the Cape Hawke community hospital board in 1995 and went on to serve as chairman until he passed. During Roger's time on the board, the hospital delivered critical health services to the growing communities around Foster-Tuncurry, including pathology, imaging rooms, 20 public inpatient beds, a hydrotherapy pool and purpose-built renal dialysis. Vale Roger Lynch.