An old-fashioned word — gentleman — best describes Katcho Achadjian
Long before he got into politics, Katcho Achadjian had made a name for himself in the South County — even among those who never had the pleasure of meeting him in person.
Katcho was everywhere. Hardly a week went by when there weren’t at least two or three photos of him in the Five Cities Times-Press-Recorder.
There was Katcho at a groundbreaking. Katcho at the Harvest Festival. Katcho volunteering at this or that charitable event.
The Grover Beach City Council declared a “Katcho Achadjian Day” in 1984 — the same year he was named Citizen of the Year in Arroyo Grande.
Instantly recognizable with his trademark mustache, Katcho was charming, debonair and funny. He was especially good at delivering one-liners with deadpan aplomb, which made him a sought-after emcee.
For a humble man, he could be a ham; he regularly stole the show at the annual fashion revue held at the Madonna Inn — a fundraiser for the women’s shelter.
When Achadjian made his first foray into politics — running for the county Board of Supervisors in 1998 — he won, of course. He ran unopposed four years later.
He would go on to complete three terms on the Board of Supervisors before running for state Assembly in 2010. That campaign remains a benchmark of civility; both he and his opponent, Hilda Zacarias, pledged not to engage in negative campaigning — and they stuck to it.
Achadjian was reelected to the Assembly two more times. (San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon challenged him in 2014, in her first bid for public office.) Katcho ran for Congress in 2016, narrowly losing in the primary to fellow Republican Justin Fareed in a big-money race — $4.5 million was raised in the primary alone.
Katcho’s loss was a heartbreaker for his supporters: “I want a redo of our recent election,” one voter wrote to The Tribune. “I may not have always agreed with Katcho, but one thing I know is that he was a candidate for the people and not a puppet for a political party!”
Looking out for underdogs
Katcho was that rarest of breeds: A conservative politician respected by Republicans and Democrats alike.
Simply put, he listened to people and looked out for the underdogs.
Take the Oceano Community Center — a building project that, believe it or not, was controversial back in the late 1990s. Some in the community branded it a “social engineering project” that would be a magnet for gang members and parolees.
At a public hearing on the center, one opponent criticized Katcho for arranging transportation for Oceano residents unable to get to the meeting in San Luis Obispo.
“We weren’t welcome on the Katcho victory bus,” the man said. “I know what Tammany Hall is all about.”
Katcho would have none of it. “If you don’t remember where you come from or what it is like to be a minority or poor ...” he said, choking up. Then he called for a break.
Why he stayed
Achadjian never forgot where he came from.
Two of his grandparents were killed during the Armenian genocide of 1915. (As an assemblyman, one of Achadjian’s proudest accomplishments was co-authoring a bill that requires public schools to teach about the Armenian genocide.)
Achadjian’s parents managed to flee to Lebanon, where Katcho was born in 1951. He left as a teenager to follow a sister to California, where he attended Cuesta College and Cal Poly, majoring in business. He worked at an South County gas station for three years, then purchased it and went on to buy more stations.
Achadjian had originally intended to return to Lebanon, but when war broke out there, his parents urged him to stay in America.
That wasn’t the only reason he remained.
”The longer I stayed, the more I wanted to be part of the San Luis Obispo County community,” he told former Tribune reporter Carol Roberts back in 2001.
And what a part he played.
If there was a need, Katcho would do whatever he could to meet it, from playing Santa at a toy give-away to chairing a committee to restore a vintage fire truck for the South County Chamber of Commerce — on top of raising a family with his wife, Araxie, running his service stations and, once he entered politics, serving constituents.
An old-fashioned word may describe him best: Katcho Achadjian was a gentleman.
Through grace, good humor and common decency, he elevated politics. And oh, how we could use some of that today.
Katcho Achadjian died March 5 at the age of 68.
He will be sorely missed.
