Celebrating a milestone
The patriarch of one of the Wimmera’s most successful sporting families has celebrated his 90th birthday.
Farmer, sportsman, sporting coach and administrator and stock agent Merv Tepper of Murtoa celebrated his milestone with his wife Margaret and family last week.
Mr Tepper has worked full-time for 77 years, 62 as a farmer and the last 15 as a stock agent. He is also Mrs Tepper’s carer.
He was a regional tennis champion and silver medallist in Australian over-40 table tennis championships. He later coached all of his four children towards national representation in table tennis.
At one stage he was the only coach for four Victorian teams at Australian under-16 championships, asking organisers to schedule team matches side by side to allow him to coach several teams at the same time. His other great passion has been horticulture, volunteering to plant and water more than 3000 trees across his home town that now constitute most of the well-established trees in Murtoa.
He has also been pruning fruit trees in the town for decades.
His eldest son Glenn, a major influence on promoting table tennis around the world, said he had taken on his father in games leading up to his birthday.
“With his pengrip pimples-sponge combination racket, the sharp angles and variation made for a tough workout and I was the one asking to stop,” he said.
“If he ever retires from his work and finds time to practice, the over-90s at the World Veteran titles should be nervous.”