Jimmy Goolsby has killed more than 50 different types of animals from around the world, and he will tell you right off he got his start in the forests of Jones County.
Goolsby, a very active almost 82-year old entrepreneur, said in an interview last week he moved to Jones County when he was 3. He lived on Hitichiti Experimental Forest property, and it bordered the Piedmont National Forest.
“What else was there to do except hunt?” he asked. “I was trapping and selling rabbits for 50 cents, selling coons for a dollar, and a quarter of a deer leg for $4. That was big money when I was a kid.”
Goolsby was born in South Carolina, and, when he moved here, his mother remained behind. She had contracted pneumonia and didn’t want him near the disease.
“When that happened, the only cure or help was penicillin,” Goolsby said. “My mother was allergic to penicillin. They developed terramycin while she was in the hospital dying. Brought her out of it. She moved over here then, and I’ve been here ever since.”
Goolsby began his indoor education in the community.
“I went to school at Juliette,” he recalled. “There were nine grades. There were five people in my graduating class in the ninth grade.”
He graduated from Jones County High, attended Middle Georgia College, then graduated from the University of Georgia in 1965 with a degree in geology. He used that knowledge in the mining industry, helping locate mining sites, drilling wells and buying, leasing and selling mining property.
Before going into business for himself, Goolsby worked for several companies as well as the State of Georgia for three-plus years.
“I went from the industry to the government, then back to the industry,” he explained.
While working with the various companies, Goolsby paid attention to how they operated, especially their ability to obtain financing with bank loans for land purchases.
“I started doing that,” he reflected. “If they could buy land, I could buy land. The banks had no problem with me.”
Goolsby’s first development partner was Buddy Glawson, and he and Pat Hardie teamed up later.
“We started buying land, developing them into lots, taking note payments. We did real well in it,” Goolsby acknowledged, “and one day the IRS walked in and said we owed them an ungodly amount of money. I ran them off. I ordered them out of my office.”
The two men hired an attorney and ultimately prevailed; they owed nothing.
“That was just the beginning of the IRS,” Goolsby complained. “I fought the IRS routinely, still am … They have evolved into something like kudzu or sweetgums.”
Among the many tracts Goolsby has bought over the years is property on the edge of Hawkinsville.
“The reason I bought it was because it had an old Indian camp on it. The University of Georgia excavated it, and I think the oldest stuff in it was 800-900 years old,” he said, but quickly added, “I found arrowheads down there that turned out to be 12,000 years old.
“I’m an artifacts lover,” Goolsby proclaimed. “I probably have more arrowheads than anyone in the county combined two or three.”
While he was busy buying and selling property, Goolsby’s personal life has been filled with successes, adventure and tragedies. He is a two-time widower.
Goolsby’s first wife, the former Dot Burgamy, died in a car wreck on Highway 11 right at what is now the Jones County Government Center. They had been married just three years, and she was pregnant.
“It was a foggy morning, and a school bus was stopped in the road,” he recalled. “She tried to stop and skidded sideways. And another woman ignored the school bus, never hit her brakes and hit her in the door.”
Goolsby was single for approximately three years and married Sandy in 1972. Thus began a life of adventures, among them a visit to Germany to purchase her a Mercedes. It was a unique trip, according to Goolsby.
“You can set up trips over there, buying cars, where they give you sort of a blank check to go and stay in all these castles,” he said. “We stayed in these castles. It was just a durn good trip … They had the car, we hit the road and toured Germany.”
Goolsby started what turned out to be annual hunting trips in the early ‘70s in the states, Mexico and Canada.
He first went to Africa in the mid 70s with Roy Fickling of Macon, using a ‘buddy’ ticket to fly.
“From then on, I was hooked,” he said, adding that he has made five trips to Africa and shot about 30 different types of animals there. He shared that he has visited numerous other countries, including Russia, Libya, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador.
Among the animals he has taken down are a brown bear and wolverine in Russia, the Marco Polo sheep in Krygyzstan, a white tail deer, black bear and water buffalo in the United States, and an elephant, African Lion, African Buffalo, roan antelope, water buck and giraffe in Africa, as well as about 45 other types.
Many of the conquests have been mounted and for a while decorated the Goolsbys’ home. However, a cabin on some of his property near the Jasper County line has become home for most of them.
“The idea was, she wanted the living room for herself,” he explained. “We had nice furniture, but those animals looking at you.”
Goolsby said his ventures proved to be expensive, and Sandy added to the cost.
“It was a tradeoff,” he recalled. “She said, ‘You’re going to spend money hunting. I think I should get equal money’. And, I agreed to do that. If I spent a thousand dollars, she got a thousand dollars. But, I lied the whole time,” he said with a laugh. “Those hunting trips were expensive.”
While Jimmy was enjoying those trips, the 21st century brought battles for the Goolsby family. They had lived in Bradley before building a house in Clinton. Goolsby’s soon became unhappy with that location.
“That was too close to the highway. I could hear all the traffic,” he recalled.
They started on another house deeper into the property.
“I had driven my first nail when DOT announced their plans.”
The proposed bypass was coming straight through the Goolsby property. That was around 2000, he recalled. The couple moved into the new home, and he continued to fight the bypass. But, around 2006-07 a more serious fight began.
“Sandy got cancer,” Goolsby said. “We fought it. Thought we had won, so I am still going to fight DOT.”
Sandy’s condition improved, then worsened. Another operation helped, but only temporarily. The Goolsbys spent time in Houston, Texas, seeking a cure. DOT continued its push to gut their property.
“I gave up. I quit,” he admitted. “I said ‘she’s more important’. I wanted to get her away from there because it was going to come through our place. And, all she could lament was, ‘Why did you quit, why did you quit fighting?’
“I didn’t want to say ‘because you need to be somewhere else.’” Goolsby started and had nearly completed another house across the path of the new roadway when Sandy lost her battle in 2012.
“All of our belongings were packed, ready to move when she died.”
Changing the subject, Goolsby shared the story of one hunting trip he will never forget. He was invited by the company that was later bought out by Bass Pro Shops to go to Russia, which, Goolsby indicated, was in dire straits following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“I was supposed to be there 14 days. I was there 21 days,” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to get out or not. They were trying to get money out of us the whole time.
“I had a standoff with them,” Goolsby declared. “They wouldn’t let us go. I walked into the conference room where they were; the translator was sitting there; the head of the town was sitting there.
“I told the translator, ‘you tell him everything I am saying’.
“I told the guy, ‘you see this pad right here?
“I’ve gotten everything that’s gone on over here written down. This is going to be in every magazine in the United States. Not a soul will ever come back over here to hunt in this part of the country when I get home.’” It worked. “I have never seen a Russian cry,” Goolsby related. “But when he translated it, the guy literally broke down, cried.
He was saying how bad it would hurt his country, blah, blah.
“I said, ‘you get us out of here, and I won’t print this.’ We were gone the next day.”
It is often said that time marches on, and nearly 13 years have passed since Sandy’s death. On one of his many trips, Goolsby met a young lady, now a citizen of the Dominican Republic. She recently came to this country with her 11-year-old son.
“It was a birthday party for him this week in Disney World,” Goolsby said. “He’d never been to America, only to see pictures. She’s never been to America. They stayed here about a day and a half. He had to get back to school.”
Goolsby shared that the youth was about 2 years old and still in Russia when he met his mother, who was from Russia as well.
“I met her on a fishing trip. We’ve been talking and seeing each other over the months for that long … It’s been one of those roller coaster rides in a relationship,” he said. “Because if you’re not with someone all the time, you’re going to go another way.
“She may be gone tomorrow,” Goolsby acknowledged. “Who knows? But it’s still been an enjoyable relationship.”
As tough as he appeared to be with the Russians, Goolsby appears to be – and is – good-hearted, with a sense of humor to boot. He recalls a conversation he had with a female friend regarding death.
“We got to talking about that,” he shared, “and she said she wanted a big funeral. She said she wanted everybody in town to attend her funeral. And she meant it.
“So,” Goolsby went on, “I said – jokingly – ‘I tell you what I will do. If you die, I will make sure I hire everybody I can find at $2 a head to fill up the church for you.’
“She didn’t say no.”
