2003 OVIS Presented to Hossein (Soudy) Golabchi

The second annual Ovis was presented on January 25, 2003. The recipient was Hossein Golabchi of Augusta, Georgia, better known by his nickname of Soudy. Soudy Golabchi was born in Iran, but emigrated to the U.S. as a young man. He is the owner of the highly successful Golmar Construction and Development Co. of Augusta. His achievements in business and his community are numerous. Soudy began hunting in Iran when he was 16 years old. He says that he has taken more sheep in his home country than he even cares to count, as he was initially not actually a trophy hunter. That came later, after he became an American citizen in 1980. Since that time he has trophy hunted worldwide, including several times in his homeland of Iran. Soudy has taken 65 wild sheep and 34 wild goats. This does not count all the Iranian sheep he took as a young man. These include 25 different Capra (wild goat) species/subspecies, and 35 different Ovis (wild sheep) species/subspecies. He has three Grand Slams, and needs only one more ram to have a fourth Grand Slam. Around 1990, Soudy became enamored with hunting the Marco Polo in Tajikistan. Since then, he has made 16 trips to the mighty Pamir Mountains. Amazingly, of the 11 or 12 Marco Polos he has taken, seven have broken the magic 60-inch mark. Back in his home state of Georgia, for several years Soudy has been involved in trying to educate young people about wildlife conservation. He has a museum and trophy room which contain well over 400 wild animals of the world, representing over 225 different species. Here he conducts training sessions for interested young people. Soudy is truly a conservationist. Over the last couple of years he has worked extensively with GSCO and SCI to try to upgrade trophy classifications. He had been interested in this for some time, and readily accepted when asked to help out with this important work. He headed up the committee for Iran’s trophy classification but has worked with all the other sheep and goats as well. Yes, Soudy is a trophy hunter, and a tremendous conservationist. He is a most deserving recipient of the second annual Ovis.