ARCH McLeish OAM, who died on Thursday, was twice mayor of Albury, 40 years a transport operator and a Rotarian for 54 years.
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Mr McLeish, 90, died at the Mercy hospital, to where he was admitted after the return of cancer and asbestosis.
A widower, he is survived by his daughter and three grandchildren.
Archibald John McLeish was born in 1927 and grew up on the family farm at Walbundrie. He left school at 16 while his father was serving in the army.
The family leased out their farm in 1943 and Mr McLeish moved to Albury to train as a Beaurepaires mechanic.
Once he turned 18 in 1945, he joined the navy while the war against Japan was continuing. He became a leading stoker and post-war did three tours of Japan on occupation duty.
Visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki left an indelible impression on the then teenager.
After he left the RAN in 1949, Mr McLeish and his brother Len bought their first truck and a country mail run. Later he founded the business of AJ McLeish, carrying many types of goods.
He often laughed about how they carted wood to Melbourne and returned with a truckful of beer.
McLeish Transport grew into a business with 24 prime movers and 15 trailers and in the 1980s was carting newsprint from Albury's mill to Melbourne.
Among his unusual loads was bringing the DC2 to Albury in 1979 for its conversion to the Uiver memorial plane.
He helped form the National Trucking Federation. In 1989 he sold his transport business with all the trucks to Greenfreight.
Mr McLeish had married Margaret Pilkington in 1954 after buying a block of land and building a house. They had two children, Alan, who died in 2004, and daughter Erris.
After retirement at 62, Mr McLeish joined a good mate Jim Paterson as an alderman and was mayor for two terms 1992-1994, earning a reputation for shrewdness, courtesy and good commonsense.
Mr McLeish also devoted more time to the Rotary Club of Albury North, and at the time of his death was the only surviving foundation member from 1963.
Mr McLeish worked at the Rotary Sunday markets from their inception until this year, helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities, and helped create the manual activities centre at Lavington.
Among other offices he held was Albury-Wodonga president of the Naval Association of Australia and regional chairman of the Murray-Darling Basin Association.
Mr McLeish received an OAM in 2013.
