He celebrated success of friends, family and strangers the same way he would his own achievements, of which there were many.

Be it through his time at the Hotel Orange, driving a taxi around town or as a butcher with IGA during his later years, "nothing was impossible" for Mr Fabar.

"When I was young and learning about the 40-hour work week, I thought that was part-time," his son, Mick Fabar said.

"I would tell people dad worked 150 hours a week, but he never missed a netball game, never missed a football game."

On April 2, 2024, John Fabar died at the age of 78.

He was born and raised in Orange, having grown up in Brunswick Street and attended De La Salle College.

His father was an Email "lifer" who instilled in him a work ethic that became renowned around the city.

Mr Fabar played rugby league with Orange CYMS from a young age and following his retirement on the field in his mid-30s, took up a role on the committee and was club president in 1980.

During his playing days, he earned the nick-name 'rock' for how hard he played the game.

"If you want to do something bad enough, hard work will get you there," Mick Fabar recalled his dad saying.

"Always be the hardest worker in the room."

A butcher by trade, Mr Fabar owned several businesses in Orange before taking on a taxi driving job for many years.

If he ever happened across a family member or one of his children's friends out late at night and in need of a assistance, Mr Fabar would always oblige with a lift, fare or no fare.

In the late 1980s he bought the Occidental Motel - which later became the Great Western - which at one stage operated 24 hours a day.

During the 1990s he turned his attention to hotel management and made it his mission to turn pubs across the state into the best versions of themselves.

"He turned some difficult hotels into successful ventures," his son added.

"Dad took a hotel in Belmore that had a real drug problem and cleaned it up, turned things around."

Then in 2006, Mr Fabar returned home and bought what was then called the Tourist Hotel.

A multi-million dollar renovation ensued and with it, a name change. Thus the Hotel Orange was born.

It was here that Mr Fabar made sure sporting clubs across the city were looked after.

"In his hotel days it wouldn't be a stretch to say he sponsored 60 touch football teams, netball teams, AFL, cycling teams, darts teams. He kept darts alive in town," Mick Fabar added.

"I don't think there's a sporting code in Orange he wasn't involved with from a sponsorship perspective."

Between the time Ronald McDonald House got approved to operate in Orange and when the doors finally opened in 2015, Mr Fabar would offer up his hotel's rooms for whoever needed accommodation from the charity, free of charge.

"He got pleasure out of helping people," his son said.

"I look back at the man he was and (people like him) don't exist anymore."

After selling the pub in 2016, Mr Fabar retired, although that was short-lived.

He initially took on a butcher's role at the Peisley Street IGA, working one day a week.

That quickly turned into a full-time gig.

At 78 years of age, Mr Fabar would still get excited if there was a truckload of lambs coming in the next day because it meant there would be a "mountain of work" to complete.

"There was no off switch for him. He had to be moving something forward all the time," his son added.

"He was one of those people who led from the front. He didn't sit on top of the chariot, he was out front pulling it."

In 2020, Mr Fabar, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with throat cancer.

He beat cancer, but the side effects of treatment took its tole on his body.

On February 27, he was laying in bed with wife Anne when out of nowhere he went into cardiac arrest.

Mrs Fabar and the paramedics saved his life, but he spent the next four weeks in hospital and a week after that in palliative care, fighting against the odds like he'd always done.

"Doctors said he wouldn't wake up, he woke up; they said he wouldn't eat, he ate; they said he wouldn't know who we are and he knew who we all were," Mick Fabar said.

"But in the end, it was just his time."

Well-wishers came out of the woodwork at the funeral service on April 9 for a man who believed "no achievement was beyond his comprehension".

Mr Fabar was survived by his wife Anne, two children Mick and Fiona as well as his grandchildren Florence, Sam, Tilly, Mia, Sage, Hope and Demi.