RIP Aaron Rowe

Vale Aaron Rowe “Rowey” – yet another young Bulldog Brother taken way too early!

A 22-YEAR-old Mil­dura man has been re­mem­bered as a go-get­ter with a pas­sion for life af­ter he trag­i­cally drowned in the Mur­ray River on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

Aaron Rowe drowned near Mer­bein Com­mon about 5.30pm Thurs­day while wa­ter­ski­ing with a friend.

It is un­der­stood Mr Rowe was attempting to untangle a rope from un­der the boat’s pro­pel­ler, but failed to resur­face.

Po­lice divers and SES mem­bers re­sponded to the in­ci­dent and his body was re­cov­ered late Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Mil­dura Homes owner Mark Cleary paid trib­ute to his ap­pren­tice car­pen­ter, who had been with the busi­ness for eight months.

“Ab­so­lute life of the party, he was a very con­fi­dent young man for his age,” Mr Cleary said.

“He was cheeky, he had a cheeky grin – that’s what ev­ery­one will miss and re­mem­ber.

“We will re­mem­ber his con­fi­dence and his pas­sion for life, he didn’t hold back in do­ing what­ever he wanted, when­ever he wanted.

“He was a hard worker and was ea­ger to learn in the eight months that he had been work­ing for us – he was a real go-get­ter.”

Mr Cleary said Mr Rowe and a work­mate were at­tempt­ing to un­tan­gle a rope from un­der the pro­pel­ler.

“It was noth­ing that any­one did wrong; it was just wrong place, wrong time,” he said.

“It’s one of those things, any­one who owns a boat would know. I have done it six times my­self – un­tan­gled a rope from the pro­pel­ler.

“It’s hap­pened a lot of times but you don’t think about the pos­si­bil­ity, it’s like a one in 100 thing.

“It was just a hot day and they tried to en­joy the wa­ter and it ended trag­i­cally.”

Mr Rowe has also been re­mem­bered as a keen foot­baller for South Mil­dura Sport­ing Club.

South Mil­dura pres­i­dent Mark Bres­ne­han said Mr Rowe would be sorely missed around the club.

“On be­half of the club I’d just like to wish his fam­ily our sin­cer­est con­do­lences and we will reach out and sup­port in any way we can,” he said.

Bres­ne­han said Mr Rowe, the grand­son of late club great Wally Kee­ble, whose fam­ily had a long as­so­ci­a­tion with the Bull­dogs, had just started to come into his own as a se­nior foot­baller.

“Aaron was on the verge of be­com­ing a for­mi­da­ble wing­man for South with his light­ning speed and agility – just as his grand­fa­ther Wally Kee­ble was,” he said.

A GoFundMe fundrais­ing page was cre­ated by fam­ily friends on Satur­day night, and had al­ready reached its tar­get of $10,000 by midafter­noon yes­ter­day.

The page de­scribed Mr Rowe as a tal­ented foot­baller who would be sadly missed.

“He was taken from us way too soon at the age of 22,” it read.

“He will be dearly missed by ev­ery­one.

“Aaron al­ways had a cheeky grin on his face that would light up the room.

“He was an ex­tremely tal­ented footy player and was al­ways mak­ing his fam­ily so proud.”

Mr Cleary said Mil­dura Homes em­ploy­ees joined South Mil­dura club mem­bers on Fri­day to re­mem­ber Mr Rowe, and hope to rally to­gether and help as much as they can.

“All the work guys got to­gether and had some piz­zas and a few beers and then went around to the South foot­ball club in the evening,” he said.

“His girl­friend Ash is un­der a lot of pres­sure, I sup­pose, so our­selves and South Mil­dura are plan­ning to help out with it all.”

Photo and story courtesy of Sunraysia Daily