People person. Tractor puller. Local postie extraordinaire.
Tributes are rolling in for Beeac’s David Clancy, who died in a road crash at Weering this week.
Mr Clancy, 56, was involved in a two-car collision on Barpinba Road on Tuesday.
Honours from the community were quick to start flowing for the popular postman, who loved to chat and always went the extra mile for his locals.
“He was so friendly and kind and helpful,” Beeac Farmers Arms Hotel’s Dorothy Macdowell said.
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Where To Buy“The pub and patrons loved him – he would always bring a smile to people.”
Rosebank Masonic Lodge’s Anthony Quantrell said Mr Clancy had received the lodge’s Richardson Award for his service to the community.
“David was a champion for the district, and he certainly helped our lodge out a lot,” Mr Quantrell said.
“The benefits he put into the community were excellent and he was a fantastic bloke.
“He will be sadly missed that is for sure, and on behalf of Rosebank Lodge of Beeac we’d like to pass on our condolences to his family.”
Artist and Beeac export Anna Sande said Mr Clancy was a kind, salt-of-the-earth man who had an ear to the ground and an eye out for his community.
“A man who filled a little town,” she wrote.
“He delivered – occasionally a flower tucked in a letterbox flap to boot.”
Mr Clancy took over the town’s post office in 2009 and had a small beef farm with his wife, Carol.
When he wasn’t doing deliveries or behind the counter, Mr Clancy was a keen tractor puller with his 500-horsepower mini modified tractor “2Tuff”.
Mr Clancy built 2Tuff in 1990, replacing its parts over the years, and he took its 350 Chevrolet V8 all the way to the Australian Tractor Pull Championship grand final in 2015.
He competed at Quambatook – known as the “Bathurst 1000 of tractor pulling” – for 30 years.
Mr Clancy travelled with 2Tuff across the country, taking out first place for the day at Biddleston in Queensland just three weeks ago.
He inspired his daughter Erin to take up tractor pulling when she was 16, and the father-daughter team shared the same tractor.
Mr Clancy was a self-confessed people person who occasionally liked to stir, and he told to the Colac Herald last year what he loved about his town.
“Beeac has plenty of community spirit; we look out for each other here,” he said.