ONE of southern Australia’s best-known cattle buyers has died suddenly.

Paul Weidner from Howlong bought cows at the Northern Victoria Livestock Exchange at Barnawartha yesterday, before passing away suddenly yesterday afternoon.

Paul Weidner was a regular at Wodonga sales each week

Mr Weidner, who was in his mid- 60s, had attended cattle sales in Wagga Wagga on Monday, and Barnawartha on Tuesday and Wednesday.

He acted as a commission buyer and bought up to 70,000 cattle annually for a range of companies and clients. Colleagues and workmates said he had a ‘unique ability’ to assess cattle.

Corcoran Parker director Kevin Corcoran said Mr Weidner had being buying cows for company clients at yesterday’s sale and said the news had come as a shock to all.

“I would rate Paul as one of the best,” Mr Corcoran said.

“He was very quick in his ability to interpret the quality of cattle, and when you are at the fat (prime) sales, the market can move along very quickly.

“He had a unique ability to be able to judge cattle and make a split-second decision on what to do and to act in the best interests of who he was buying for.”

Mr Corcoran said Mr Weidner was part of the well-known Weidner family cattle dynasty of southern NSW. His uncle Alan was also a cattle buyer and Paul took over some of his work when his uncle retired.

“Paul started buying cattle as a kid more than 50 years ago,” Mr Corcoran said.

“He was one of the more respected cattle buyers in the region. This is a very competitive industry, but you would find very few, if any, people to say a bad word about him.”

Mr Weidner was also a cattle producer and had a property at Howlong. The family had recently bought another property near Rutherglen, Mr Corcoran said.

Paull and Scollard-Landmark director Mike Scollard said the long-time cattle buyer had a strong reputation.

“He had been buying cattle for a long time and he knew his cattle,” Mr Scollard said.

“He might have been more local recently, but he used to buy right up the river to Swan Hill and Echuca. He loved his farm and had only bought more land in January.”

Mr Corcoran said what set Mr Weidner apart was his dedication to paperwork. Despite the potentially large numbers of orders he was filling, his paperwork was ‘immaculate.’

“Paul’s dedication to paperwork, helped out by his wife Fran, was second to none,” he said.

“He would go to a cattle sale every day of the week, he would often inspect cattle for us on a Sunday and he would run his farm – it’s hard to know how he fitted it all in but he did, and he did it well.

“We will all be pinching ourselves next week because he won’t be there at the sales.”