Karam Haddad

Ōtorohanga District Mayor Max Baxter has posted that Karam Haddad was killed in a crash on Wednesday. Police said one person died following an accident on State ...

“As I reminisced I kept recalling Karam pointing his finger at me in the Haddads shop and repeating – several times I add, ‘Don’t ever forget the plush Davey, the reason we love selling Swazi is the plush’. One of life’s few gentlemen has gone and he leaves a huge space behind,” an online tribute from Swazi founder Davey Hughes said. When I heard the news last night it sat me down hard. You were a bloody legend my friend.” Big things are happening in the mighty Waikato, and you need to know about them. [A town legend and icon](https://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/70698461/otorohanga-clocks-up-highest-life-expectancy-for-waikato)... Others remembered purchases wrapped in brown paper and said they always stopped into the shop to say hi, with one adding “It’s gonna be hard to imagine what life would be like from now on without Karam behind the counter at Haddads”. “We have been trying to find the words to commemorate Mr Karam Haddad but nothing seems quite right. [The Haddads own a menswear store](https://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/life-style/8408363/World-of-mouth-The-Traders) in the town and have outfitted generations of residents, cutting a dashing figure about town with their trademark hats. And Karam was seen as “a bloody legend” by the founder of outdoor clothing brand Swazi, who said the brothers had sold their product since the very beginning. The small Waikato town of Ōtorohanga is mourning one of its best-known residents, who has been described as an icon and “one of life’s few gentlemen”. Baxter wrote “Karam and brother John are icons of Ōtorohanga and New Zealand”.