The year after a tragedy took their daughter Poppy, Sherwood’s Asha and Charlie Crozier are giving back to the region that backed them wholeheartedly in the aftermath, by launching a rural education scholarship in her name.

To her inner circle, their youngest daughter was known affectionately as ‘Pops’.

“Poppy was incredibly determined and independent, had a strong sense of self, yet all of those things protected a very soft interior,” said her father Charlie, with a smile.

“She absolutely loved home and the farm, loved animals and was incredibly loyal to her crew of beautiful friends.”

At 19 years old, Poppy had landed a job she enjoyed in Adelaide, was studying agricultural science and was starting to decide who and what she wanted to be in life.

The night of May 26, 2023, Poppy was driving home on rain-soaked roads for the weekend to visit her boyfriend Dylan, visiting family and heading to a friend’s birthday in Kingston.

Asha had spoken to her at Murray Bridge, as Poppy was about to start the 170-kilometre trip home to the family property at Sherwood, near Keith.

“It was around 6pm and she had just gone over the Murray Bridge. She said she had a good day at work and talked about what her plans were, and said I’ll see you tomorrow,” Asha said.

An hour later, alerted to a major accident on the Dukes Highway by social media posts, Asha and Charlie anxiously rang Poppy’s phone again and again.

“We tried to call her, but we couldn’t get her, just couldn’t get her,” he said. “I think we instinctively knew.”

Charlie described the wait as the ‘longest two hours of our lives’.

It was 9pm before police came to the property to tell them their worst fears had been realised.

Poppy had died in the accident on the Dukes Highway at Ki Ki, a notorious stretch of road which had seen too many lives lost over the last few years.

The news struck the Crozier’s tight-knit upper south-east community hard, where the road was a necessary commute for many country people.

“It could have been any one of our community’s kids,” Asha said, simply.  “It wasn’t just a loss to us.”

Dealing with their own grief and in the midst of planning their daughter’s funeral and public memorial, the Croziers were also facing the prospect of lengthy court proceedings for the young man accused of causing the accident.

In the days following, the response from the local community was immediate and ‘phenomenal’, Asha said.

“They circled the wagons around us,” Charlie said.

Inundated with flowers, food hampers, calls and visits from concerned locals, it was the many well-intentioned offers of ‘what can we do?’ that prompted the Croziers to make a decision.

“In the worst possible circumstances, we were incredibly fortunate that there were people around us making sure we had anything and everything we needed,” Asha said.

“We knew that there was a desire for people to be doing something, so we wanted that energy to be able to go somewhere good and do some good.”

The Limestone Coast’s Stand Like Stone Foundation, with its simple ‘give where you live’ premise, had been at the fringes of the Crozier’s lives for some time.

Asha’s father John had been part of the initial foundation group, friends had been involved as board members, and as a local educator, Asha had witnessed the impact the foundation’s Back-to-School program had locally.

A call from Charlie to Lucy Ryan, a family friend and past foundation Director, prompted an emergency meeting of the board to create a special legacy fund for the Croziers.

The next day, the Poppy Crozier Memorial Sub-Fund was open to receive donations.

It was the very mission of the foundation, said current Chair Georgie McKay, to be able to respond and act, when local demand required.

“It’s incredibly important to be able to flex for community need, not only in the face of tragedy but the needs of the community going forward,” she said. “We have to be able to act quickly and respond quickly when the need is there.”

“It’s clear Poppy’s story touched the collective hearts of our community, because the donations have come from far and wide, across Australia.”

On June 14, 2023, nine hundred people from across Australia came to farewell Poppy at the public memorial at the Adelaide Oval.

With the city of Adelaide as backdrop, one of the family’s favourite photos of Poppy was beamed across the scoreboard, with the words ‘Sadly missed, forever loved’.

As friends and family grieved, her elder sister Edwina bravely read out the speech she was planning for her sister’s 21^st birthday.

Meanwhile, donations flowed in daily. In the 14 days following the memorial, the sub-fund totalled more than $25k.

Every donation mattered, from the Keith Campdraft Club who donated $2,000, to the $53,000 contributed by Bec Hurst, who nominated the sub-fund for her 2024 Swinging with The Stars competition – the largest individual fundraising effort in the history of the 16-year event.

Now totalling $103k, the sub-fund had to find its purpose.

More than a year on, the Croziers knew exactly what that was – a scholarship named for the girl who loved the farm and dedicated to the region who supported their family through a tough year.

This year, October 10 would have marked Poppy’s 21^st birthday.

It will also be the week applications open for the Poppy Crozier Memorial Scholarship, specially created to support a Limestone Coast student looking to further their tertiary agricultural studies.

‘’We want her memory to live on,” said Asha. “This is a way to keep her memory going, but also to benefit the community that’s been supporting us.”

Charlie, who fondly remembers Poppy crawling around as a baby in the farm office, said the family property was her ‘happy place’, among the animals and with her dog Olive at her side.

“Poppy never got to finish her ag science degree,” he said. “However, the scholarship keeps it going and other people might get to do exactly that.”

“We want Pops to be remembered for what she was, who she was and what she wanted to be.”

Online applications for the Poppy Crozier Memorial Scholarship will open on October 15, for study undertaken in 2025. For more information, contact info@standlikestone.com.au

Photos by Kate Hill, Sarah Cunningham & Crozier Family