Well-respected Awatere Valley farmer Graham Black has died and his wife, Beverley Black, is in a stable condition after being found in their upturned vehicle down a steep bank yesterday.

Family, friends and police searched the road after the Blacks did not return home from a trip to Blenheim on Tuesday afternoon.

They were found in Cow Creek, about 40 kilometres from the Awatere Valley Rd turnoff on State Highway 1.

The couple run Awapiri Station, in the Awatere Valley, with their son and daughter-in-law, and are much respected high country farming people. Mr Black is well known in New Zealand and Australia as a merino stud ram breeder and judge and for mentoring young people in the merino industry.

A family spokeswoman said the couple were in Blenheim on Tuesday afternoon, and were reported missing after their son, Duncan, visited them on Wednesday morning and could not find them.

Marlborough highway patrol leader Sergeant Barrie Greenall said a family member found the car about 80 metres down a steep cliff, shortly before a helicopter arrived.

Emergency workers used cutting gear to free the couple. Mr Black was pronounced dead at the scene, and workers carried Mrs Black on a stretcher several hundred metres up the steep hill to the waiting helicopter. She was flown to Wairau Hospital and was reported to be in a stable condition this morning.

A friend said Mr Black's death would leave a large gap in the Awatere Valley and New Zealand merino farming communities, which would remember him for his integrity and quiet sense of humour. The couple have a son, two daughters and three grandchildren aged between 4 and 16.

The couple have shown their top merinos at every A&P show in Blenheim and Christchurch since 1976.

Mr Black spent four decades judging sheep both nationally and internationally and was a founding member and a life member of the local merino association.

Constable Michelle Stagg, of Blenheim, said Mr Black, who was the driver, may have failed to take a sharp right-hand bend.

Volunteer fire brigades from Seddon and Blenheim, Blenheim police and St John ambulance attended the scene.

- The Marlborough Express

Station owner dies in car crash

SIMON WONG

Last updated 12:23 24/02/2011

BEN CURRAN

Graham Black at last year's A and P Show in Blenheim

SCOTT HAMMOND

Rescued: Awatere Valley woman Beverley Black was flown to Wairau Hospital and is in a stable condition after she and husband Graham Black were found in their upturned car in the Awatere Valley.