11 minute read
THE CEDAR GATE
By Holden Hill
With a mission to make people say “wow” from the moment they arrive, The Cedar Gate is Oklahoma’s premier destination for elegant western-style fund-raisers, corporate retreats, weddings, and sportsman events. A beautiful rustic entrance frames the property while a gravel road follows the flow of the land to introduce visitors to two state of the art sporting clay courses, a thousand yard shooting range, five luxury cabins, two high capacity event venues, a two-story VIP lodge worthy of it’s own place in Yellowstone, an elegant board room capable of seating up to twenty-four people, and eight fishing ponds. But before The Cedar Gate was a sought after
event destination, it was——and still is——home base for the Hill family’s family legacy. “I remember watching the sunset with my mom as a kid after we had just harvested our Christmas tree one year. We were sitting on sunset hill, which is at the center of The Cedar Gate property. As one of the relics of the 1930’s Dust Bowl, it’s only about as tall as a two story house, but surrounded by farmland as far as the eye can see in any direction, it’s the best sunset viewing spot for miles around. As we watched the sun sink below the horizon, I told my mom, ‘Someday, I’m going to buy this place and do something special with it.’ At the time, I had no idea what that meant, but I did have a dream and in my experience, God often calls us to take the first step before he reveals the next. That’s what the journey of faith is all about.
Yellowstone Worthy: Above, wester decor is used in most of the facilities at The Cedar Gate. Below you can see one of the cabins from the exterior along with one of the vantage points for a weddings. The Cedar gate is perfect for hosting corporate retreats, weddings, or even sportsman events. It's even become somewhat of Governor Kevin Stitt's retreat. Photo Submitted By: Holden Hill
Our family bought The Cedar Gate property in 2005 and now, seventeen years later, the dream just keeps getting bigger. We get to serve thousands of people every year, support world changing businesses and ministries, and be a part of the way God is transforming lives for his kingdom. And yet, even with all the things we get to use it for, it’s still our family’s farm at heart. A place we can call home for generations. That’s why we built it, and it always will be," said Brian Hill, The Cedar Gate founder. "I think my earliest memories at the farm (I know, I know, it’s called The Cedar Gate now, but we used to just call it “the farm” back then) are our annual father-son camping trips we used to do with the men and boys in our circle of family friends. The dads took the girls out there on a different trip every year too, but I wasn’t there for those so I don’t have much to say about them. What I can say a lot about are the times dad, my brothers, and me would load up our tent, sleeping bags, and propane cooker and meet all our best friends out at the farm to raise hell for the weekend just as men! We used to set up our campsite where the lodge is now. Between our tent and the seven or eight other father-son groups there, we looked like a small neighborhood. The fun we had and the lessons we learned came in equal supply. Few activities beat “dads vs. boys” paintball wars, rip-roaring on four-wheelers, shooting turtles in the pond, roasting hot dogs over a campfire, and attacking your friends with bamboo stick-swords. Dad and us boys fell asleep in a dog pile every night to keep warm and woke up every morning to the promise of eggs, bacon, pancakes, and gas station powder donuts. Amidst all our shenanigans, what dad was really doing was building up bold, Godly men. I know from personal experience just how powerful it is to have a father who you know believes in you. That was constantly communicated in everything we did, from things as simple as dad letting me and my brothers go drive four-wheelers by ourselves with a strong “be wise, boys” pep talk beforehand, to dad having me drive his truck across the property with a load of hay bales on a trailer behind me. I’ve wrecked four-wheelers and jack hammered trailers and received my share of scoldings for reckless behavior, but never once did dad diminish his faith in me. He put his trust in me, and that called out the man in me to meet his trust.
Activities-A-Plenty: A sportsman aims at one of the shooting stations at the world class course. Above that a shooting team poses at the Great Plains Kubota sponsored shooting station with our Governor. Finally the facilities are classy enough inside to host bridal shoots. Speaking of shoots, the last photo shows a shooter preparing to take a target on the 1,000 yard range. Photo Submitted By: Holden Hill Continued on pg26
The Cedar Gate & Great Plains Kubota By Garrett Fisher CONNECTINGIMPACTING& Oct. 13th 9a.m.
The Cedar Gate - CR N2740 Kingfisher, OK 73750
Two years ago, on a typical hot, humid summer day Great Plains Kubota service employee Miguel Sigala saw a pickup broken down in the road. Inside that truck sat Cedar Gate owner, Brian Hill. “I was in the middle of the road in heavy traffic, and 100 plus degree weather, hood up and frustrated that I ran out of diesel, when up pulls an employee of Great Plains Kubota asking if I needed help. Being so kind and helpful, he left to get some jumper cables while I kept looking in my toolbox and eventually found a set. I looked up and there was another Great Plains Kubota truck parked right in front of me. The driver, Shawn Priddy offered to give me a jump. After my truck started back up, Shawn and I got talking about how grateful and appreciative I was to Miguel for stopping to help. I gave him my business card and told him that we have a retreat center west of Kingfisher, and that if they ever needed to use our property for anything we would take care of them on the house”, said Brian Hill Owner of Cedar Gate. So eventually, Shawn Priddy took him up on that offer. The Great Plains board was in need of an offsite meeting location and one of the conference rooms on the Cedar Gate property served perfectly. “We made the initial visit to Cedar gate, and from there it led to them becoming not only a partner, but a customer. We later had our ministry meeting there which was the catalyst to the rejuvenation of this magazine and other ministries as a company. We’ve had the privilege of being able to pray directly for our state leaders through the relationships at Cedar Gate, and our touch in the Christian business community has grown through companies like Great Plains Construction, Legacy Planning Partners, and others”, said Shawn Priddy COO of Great Plains Kubota. Here at Great Plains Kubota, we are “The Brand That Serves” and we aim to embody that in everything that we do. On that day Shawn and our Great Plains Kubota family did just that as Hill stated. “It wasn’t originally the equipment that drew me to Great Plains, I had never even tried a Kubota, but the way that I was treated by the Great Plains Kubota people left me wanting to figure out a way to do business with them. This was a result of the way I was treated, with a selfless serving me first mentality as opposed to serving me to get something, they were truly just there to help and to serve first.” Our full Kubota line offers high quality ready to use equipment to tackle any job you need done. Whether that be through our Agriculture or Construction Equipment, we have you covered. With Cedar Gate, Hill was ready for a change. “I started looking into getting out of my old equipment and upgrading to Kubota, I asked them to share with me what they had and how it compared to other brands, and to tell me why I should switch over. They gave me all of their specs on their equipment and after discussing it further, it not only made logical sense, but it made financial sense to switch over to Kubota equipment from Great Plains. After I used their clean and ready to use loaner for a couple weeks and experiencing the joystick controls, air-conditioning, sound, and rubber tracks, I was determined never to go back.”
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