Keith Bates

Keith Bates was involved in SCI from the beginning. He attended the early 1972 gathering at Chef Alberto’s restaurant in Chicago with Roman Hupalowski and C. J. McElroy—the meeting that led to the creation of Safari Club International and its Chicago and Los Angeles chapters. Keith was the Chapter’s first Vice-President and later became its second President.

Keith became a driving force behind Safari Magazine, helping make SCI’s monthly publication an award-winning magazine. He also produced marketing materials for SCI’s American Wilderness Leadership School. Keith was an SCI member for more than 50 years and received the Illinois & Chicago Chapter Distinguished Service Award in 2015.

Keith lived a true life of adventure. He encountered mountain gorillas in Rwanda, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, flew around Mount Everest, piloted a single-engine plane from Chicago to Anchorage, went skydiving, drag raced, worked in a Paraguayan government jaguar-darting study, acted in a Hollywood film about the Korean War, survived a lion attack in Botswana, studied remote cultures, taught jet-engine theory in the U.S. Air Force, rode elephants in Africa and camels in India, and flew a jet fighter.

He hunted on almost every continent. At age 80, after more than 40 years of preparation, Keith traveled to Tajikistan and successfully hunted a Marco Polo ram at an altitude of 16,000 feet—with a handgun. The Illinois & Chicago Chapter is greatly honored to include Keith Bates as the second member of our Chapter’s Hall of Fame.