Reagan Renfroe - Renfroe Creative, Outdoor Photography, Purpose Hunt

We cover some fun stuff with the heyday of social media and the outdoor industry and some fun stuff that I've been very blessed to be a part of through Reagan and because of Reagan's invitation , and that is specifically the purpose hunt that we do every year . So , anyway , hope you guys enjoy it .

Thank you , as always , for listening and we'll see you next time . Welcome to the lab . A cornerstone gundog Academy podcast focused on all things gundogs , good times and the great outdoors . I'm your host , barton Ramsey . What's up everyone ? Welcome back to the lab , excited to have you here .

As you heard in the intro , I'm joined by my buddy , reagan Renfro , who not long ago was in this building with me , which gave us the bright idea that we're way behind on knocking this podcast out , and I'm glad we're finally finally getting after it .

And then we rolled through there and we were talking about the buck story and then , on our way to Florida , we listened to a couple of more and so I think you told Addison my dog was ugly . You told Aaron Hitchens my dog was ugly .

I knew you were coming , but when you texted me about the podcast I immediately knew I was like he heard what he heard what I said . Oh , that's my bad . And yeah , I mean she's funny I actually think she looks better now that she's got gray hair . She looks just like her dad now .

But um , yeah , I did say that I did not mean for your wife to hear that , because now she's in the eye of the beholder , you know she nah , she thinks , she thinks it's funny .

From each parent that does happen it happens that way , she's a sweetheart , though I actually think she's , and this is not just her , this , I've had several of these , but she's not super photogenic . That's part of the problem . And she was as a little puppy , but like I think .

Do you remember I had a stud dog , uh , field trial champion autumn willow kaiser was his name , and he went by bubba . I do remember bubba . He was such a nice dog and to this day produced some of the nicest puppies we've ever had .

But it was so hard for me to convince people to get on his litters because you just couldn't take a very good photo of him . You just couldn't . And he wasn't an ugly dog by any stretch . Just every photo you were like , ooh , that doesn't look great .

So this time of year it gets hot and he got over , he got worked and then he just got overstimulated . We had a female in heat and he was trying to .

He was pacing in the kennel and then uh filled his water bucket up and he drank the whole thing and I went to let him out and sucker stomach was like the size of a basketball and he was coughing and hacking and anyway he ended up living .

Uh , for those of you who have dogs , if you experience bloat it's an emergency like you have to get it fixed right away . If they go to , if they go to sleep the next morning , they're gonna , they're not gonna live . But I don't know a percentage .

I know most of the time it doesn't self-correct and so if they have bloat , from from what I know , they can't throw up . They just sit there hacking and trying to throw up . But they can't throw up . And he was on the table about to go under and he was trying to throw up and this guy was about to cut him open and drain his stomach and all that .

And he stood up and it unfolded and the sucker threw up like it was like a gallon and a half of water . It was disgusting All over me . Ugh , gross .

So I'd love to hear your kind of version of that , because my memory gets a little messed up . But I know it was before Remy's , before Pups , before any of that . We shared a mutual group or two . That was exciting .

I met my wife there , ended up sticking around in Tulsa and then got connected with a handful of guys in the greater Oklahoma area I guess you could say in Oklahoma state areas and started hunting together and um , with that I would say that's probably . We graduated college in 2013 . So it was somewhere around 2013 , 2014 , 2015, .

You had a rise in social media and the amount of people that were not only getting plugged into social media . Instagram was still very , very new at the time . You know , back when you could follow people and you'd actually see their content . And then now you never know what you're going to see Zero curation back then .

You know , the rise of Instagram and then Facebook groups at the time was still growing rapidly and so in kind of a weird way I'd say it was probably 2013-ish I was kind of just starting to get back into waterfowl hunting heavily and I bought a Sitka might have been like the duck oven back then .

It was back when they might have had six or seven products available Very , very early days of waterfowl . Ended up seeing it I think it was probably like in a Max Perry Wings ad or something and so bought it , loved the product , thought it was so cool , it was just different than anything else .

And so then I began to buy a little bit more and you know you buy the wading jacket , the pants , and I was always a gear junkie . I kind of wanted to look different . I wanted to be different , I wanted to have different things than what other people were using .

And then those were the days of Under Armour and Realtree , and then you've got Duck Blind camo and the Masioc and all of the things . And so Sitka was so new . I was like this is cool , Nobody wears this , I want to wear that .

And so you start buying it and then you kind of start to connect with other people who were wearing it as well , I think you and a number of others being one . And so this goes way back .

This is kind of crazy how it all started , but I went and started a Facebook group called Sitka Fanatics and it was kind of lame back in the day and if you found the group you're like well , who's all these weird people that are acting like fanatics over a weird camo ? Back at that time everybody threw a ton of shade against right . Yes , this was hardcore .

Mossy Oak , Realtree days .

But anyways , we kind of just began to develop this really tight knit community of guys that all shared common interests of . You want to use the newest gear , you know , you want to run the best dog , you want all of kind of the best things that were available to a waterfowl or even , you know , an outdoor enthusiast at the time .

But the other side of that that I don't think a lot of people realize is it was also the beginning of the rise in content and creative content Without a doubt there wasn't a lot of people doing it and you had guys like Lee Joes who had been legends for forever and had just established themselves , you know , as the pinnacle within the industry , so to say .

But then you also had groups that were kind of early to the game , you know , such as Aaron and the Rockhouse Motion guys , who were starting to shoot stuff and showcase content that nobody had really ever seen before , and now you have a community and platforms to showcase it , rather than just waiting for the Ducks Unlimited cover to come out or seeing a spread

even in a Cabela's catalog . And so all these things , I think , started just to surface around the same times of creating a way for people to connect with one another , and photography and equipment , and then dogs and all of these different things kind of fueled that fire .

And what you know probably started out as six or eight or 10 guys grew to 20 guys , grew to hundreds of guys , and then it was actually really cool because you just had a lot of people who began to also travel and meet up with one another .

And you know , you start hunting in areas like North Dakota , south Dakota , montana , and you're making new friends and like there was just this community around , you know , 2014 , 2015 . And then a few years , you know , following that , where people just found a lot of commonalities and really bonded

around that , and gear being one , photography being one , and then a number of other things , man .

It was more difficult back then . Um , not just any old person could go buy a , you know , 4 000 megapixel camera , like they're so available . So , and then having a real eye for it . And there are a lot of places I want to go from that . I know the Sitka . It was Sitka gear fanatics on Facebook , that group which you started .

Um , I made so many friends that one . And then , I think , the Dakota decoyoy pro staff , yep , uh , which led to the grind , a private group for the grind , which we still I literally have a check on my desk for our sponsorship for them right now . Um , and man , so many people back then .

Well , I learned from the founder of Sitka Gear , one of them , jonathan , before you made the group and you're right , there was like the Delta , the duck oven , some insulation pieces and some bibs and that was about it and it was . It was pretty rare to see and it did catch a lot . You know so yellow , you know how are you ?

going to wear that in the woods . Anyway , I was wearing Sitka gear then and Jonathan bought a a dog , and we started hanging out and became friends . He'll be on the podcast here soon . Lots to learn from him . But he was talking about the partnership early day connection between Sitka gear and Yeti coolers and we had this long conversation which I'll share .

I'll save for that podcast . But in that conversation I recognized that I needed to make as many friends as I could with content creators and people who were like-minded as far as waterfowling and gear and make associations with companies that I truly believed were the best at what they were doing and showcase that our brand was in line with their brand .

And then figure out a way to get my dogs in the hands of content creators hopefully good looking dogs , or just get around them , right . And so that would have been early days . You , ted Wells , ted , shout out to Teddy . I haven't talked to Ted in a couple of years .

I hung out with him in Bozeman a couple of years ago , but Ted was one of the OG photographers shooting . He was in Montana , never had one of our dogs .

I made sure he was around him , you know , yeah , and I think there was this natural thing that happened where , as you said , social media was really really blowing up in the , in the outdoor space , and this would be the time if you're listening to this and you weren't around like unfortunately , everyone was dying to be like a pro staffer , right like the big .

I think the big um carrot on the stick that brands could kind of jingle out in front of folks was hey , you can come be a pro staffer . Everyone wanted to know how to pro staff for every company alive , which really rendered the term pro staff like meaningless , because everyone and their mom was a pro staff for any company that really wanted .

It was very rarely handled well and um . And it was also funny because you knew certain companies like Sitka didn't have like a pro staff .

They had like a pro partner discount They'd give you if you worked in the industry , and then they had ambassadors , which I think at that time there were only like three or four waterfowl ambassadors like Matt Brimmer and there were not many there weren't many . Uh , there still aren't many . I think there are like maybe 10 of us now .

Um , I think anyway , uh , you go back to those days and like a lot of it may have looked like a big group of people , but the people that were creating the content and getting getting stuff out there it was actually a very small , tightly knit community for the most part .

You had to go north of $2,500 . Yeah , and so there was . It was expensive $500 , yeah , and so there was . There's it . It was expensive and and there was a significant learning curve because there wasn't a lot of resources available for people to to learn it and you had you had to buy really good equipment to create really great images and images were king .

It kills me to have to post a cell phone photo or like a flyer for something like if I get like we're partnered with the Iron Hills Music Festival and they'll put me as a collab , which I don't mind at all , but I'm like , oh , yeah , needs a good photo .

You know it's uh , it's tough and I I give a lot of the credit to you guys um , you , uh , hitchens , who's been on ?

Uh , matt white , dustin collin , the rock house og rock house gang , the Rockhouse OG Rockhouse Gang and you and I'll say Ted Wells , he took some great photos of my dogs , yep , and just being around you guys , and every time we were together you took pictures of my dogs . And I've had this assumption .

I've actually never asked Like other than running the Southern Oak Kennel merch store for a period of time . I've never paid you for photos and you've never even hinted at charging me for photos . I've always felt like there was a mutual benefit in the , the eyes that were put on them .

For dog photos I don't know if it's what it is about dog photos I feel like they more I mean they get shared a lot more than if a dog is in it . I feel like it gets a lot more attention than if it's just a piece of gear or something like that .

Yeah , I've always and maybe this is wrong of me , but I've always had a little bit of an assumption , because southern oak had a big following which we can get into how that came to be . But I think a lot of this is why it was mutually beneficial for the content creators in the early days to have their photos on Southern note tagged .

You know those early days where Instagram was on the rise and you know photos were king and if you wanted to , it's almost like if you wanted to have a purpose and an identity within social media .

Like you had to become a photographer , and so you look at , like , the pro staff world , you know , which stands for promotional staff , not professional staff , but you know you had to be a creative .

You had to create something , because it was no longer important for them to just get people to events and , you know , rep the stuff Like they needed content in order to fuel it .

And so I think myself definitely included this in a number of other people Like you found your identity in taking photos , posting them and then trying to get attention from it , just the same as you would today . You know why does anybody post anything on social media ?

You're looking for attention , and so , for me , as a creative , I was really getting into photography , and I was .

I just there was an aspect of it that I loved , but I also wanted that identity on social media of like , hey , I'm a photographer , I take great photos and so a part of that kind of going back to what you just said , there was this small circle where there was mutual benefit kind of going . You could call it a triangle or whatever .

But as a creator , if you could create content that was good enough for Southern Oak Kennels to use , and they post it and you're tagged on it . Well then there's other brands , like a Sitka Gear , like a Yeti , like a whatever that's going to see that , and then that also creates a connection between creator and that person .

And so that's when that's a lot of the big reasons , because I was on , you know , the Dakota decoy team , you know , for a few years there and contributed content and I got to shoot stuff for Yeti .

And I wouldn't have got to shoot stuff for Yeti and then eventually I became a paid photographer for Sitka as well , but that's because of the work that I was able to do through people like you .

So there was a mutual benefit where everybody's benefiting in this circle and brands are getting content that they need , companies are getting exposure and creators are having opportunities to create .

And then over time that got harder and harder because brands start taking advantage of free content , creators start continue to work for free and they're not getting out of it , and then people get undercut and you have . You know so many things that start to transpire . So I would say there was .

You're talking about the golden age of of content , especially within outdoor recreation . It only lasted a couple of years before it started getting really hard . Really , competitive .

And I was talking to someone the other day and I just said can you imagine trying to grow that now , like if it got hacked and you had to restart because the world is so full of similar Instagram pages and the barrier to growth on social media the paywall , uh , the you know the requirements would be insane .

It really and I get that compliment a lot from people and I appreciate it very much Uh , when people are like man , your photos are so good , your social media stuff is so fun to follow . We love the photos . Well , all that is really just because of I don't want to say look , but providential timing . Yeah , I you're , I'm 38 .

I think you're my age , yeah , 36 .

But in the seventh grade I had I may have mentioned this on the podcast before , but I had yahoo , instant messenger and aim . And then by eighth grade I had a z page which was like a blog . Remember those Yep . And then , ninth grade , I had a live journal .

You told me like 23 years ago that I had limited storage , but like all those things . Well then that led to MySpace . You know , in high school I was in a band and we built our entire following off MySpace , you know . And so you fast forward to my mid twenties , your mid twenties .

When we have things that we're passionate about , the first thing we did was go do something about it on the Internet . It was like , hey , we've grown up with . We went from Zynga to MySpace , to Facebook , to Instagram , had Friendster in there somewhere and had AIM .

And you know , back in the day , you just found community on the internet when all that was starting , and so it was a natural transition for me for Southern Oak Kennels to exist , whereas a lot of our competitors were older than me , they'd been there a while and they had great experience in running great businesses , but they were like trying to hire some kid to

manage their social , whereas I was like , hey , this is a first language for me because we grew up with it .

You know if you started right now , it would be extremely hard , because the earlier days of social media and the rise of Instagram , facebook , you know , groups within Facebook , like it was about community and connection and building relationships and meeting new people , and now that has shifted to almost like mindless entertainment , like if you wanted to grow your

social media organically today , you would have to try to make viral TikTok reels and Instagram reels about dogs jumping off of ledges . You could not create a sound brand off of photography and great imagery of your dogs today , like you did in 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , and a few years following , you know , whenever .

That was because social media is so different and people are so different and the reason why they spend their time online and on social media is tremendously different .

Well , aaron will see that and be like , make that a real like , post it as a real Cause . He knows , like that's the stuff . That'll little and I'm I'm bad at that . That's not my primary right . I don't just automatically go there . That's not my primary right . I don't just automatically go there .

Which reminds me like I'm getting older and if I want to stay relevant to a younger audience , like what are the things that have to change ? You don't want to be the guys like , oh , I remember my mentor being like I don't need no Facebook , you know . Like I'm not doing that stuff .

I've sold dogs for 30 years without it , you know , and now he's got Facebook . So I don't want to be the guy that doesn't progress . But I do think the timing of of those groups , the community that was built there it's .

I'm , I'm forever grateful for that and for you starting that group and also still probably profusely need to apologize for being the reason the group ceased to exist . We should probably tell the story . I don't know how many , how much of the details I really remember , but the Sick of Gear Fanatics group grew like a ton . It grew like wildfire .

Yeah , how many people were in it toward the end .

It wasn't about the products . I mean the products , I think , were just a byproduct . It gave people a reason to be there and the community was so secondary but fast forward to there , and the community was was so secondary but fast forward to what the waiter launch . I think is that the moment or was it ? Well ?

Now , there will never be one the same , um , because then you could post something for sale and somebody buy it from you and there was no like hey , the money didn't show up , there was none of that , or the guy didn't send it to me and there was no like hey , the money didn't show up , there was none of that , or the guy didn't send it to me .

It was a different world then , um , but that group and I think I haven't thought through this , but I think I can I can talk pretty candidly about it , because none of , to my knowledge , none of the people involved in in in what was going on are are still at sitka gear . Yeah , I don't think anyone's there , but I do know and I understand this .

You , you have . Sitka gear has a massive social following at the time . They're killing it on on social . Um , they've got Ben Potter doing insanely cool videos , right ?

Uh , they had rock house that they used to always joke about how they would price guys out , which that's a whole different conversation but , like you would have these guys probably honestly like yourself who come along and you're like , hey , this , this kid's really good , let's get them to do

some photos . And then it gets posted on Sitka . As I heard you so accurately say , you're using me as a stepping stone to get there . You get to Sitka or you get to the Mecca , which is like having Yeti post your stuff . Well , then , all of a sudden , you turn around and you're like well , now I'm worth more because more people are calling .

And so Sitka always joked about being the guys that push people out of their own price range so that Yeti can hire them . But when you have a private Facebook group , that is what I would consider to be a captive audience of essentially nothing but their target customers . Yes , which was created organically .

Yep , they wanted a ton of control over that over that .

There was no representation from the company , there was no control , there was no involvement , there was nothing , Just a group of people . And then it grew like wildfire .

Anyway , there were some things going on behind the scenes that I learned about . Some of them were hilarious , which I'll just share . Like there were . There were discount codes being created and being given to someone or someone's multiple people , with the explicit instructions of don't share it , yeah .

And then they were tracking , yeah , how many other people were ordering using that code . And they weren't even mad about it , they were just trying to track influence of the people . Um , and so it was . Uh , it was pretty cool to say , like that was the thing . Like let's see how much influence .

I'm not gonna name any names there , but let's see how much influence this guy has , because we want to know whether or not we should be keying in on what he's doing . It was , it was . There were so many things like that , and I didn't realize until the waiter launch how many people at sitka gear were obsessed with sick of gear fanatics .

Yeah , like , there it was . Uh like , and I get it . They had a very captive , like private group of people that would buy their stuff and even with the discount code , they're making more than when they sell it at retail .

talk about the philosophy around opening up the Outfitter and Partners program .

So people would order on discount because then they're automatically going to go order as much as they possibly can and as a company you're still making the same amount of money from them ordering through your website with that 40% discount as you would selling it to any other XYZ retailer yeah correct . They make the same amount of money , same amount .

It was like a , unfortunately , and I apologize to all of you who had to see that , but it was like a status symbol . Back then I was like , look how much sick of gear I have . Anyway , it was , in my opinion , the leading stuff .

I was warm and dry and in the sick of gear fanatics group there were and there was so much trash talk um , over over gear , over , really , over the waiters .

That was for for those of you who weren't around when , when waiters weren't out , there was this deal where , like , everyone wanted sitka to come out with waiters and everyone thought they had the correct idea over when they were going to be released , if they were going to be released , what they were going to be . And so you had all these camps .

You had like they're just going to be Sims waiters with Sitka pattern , they're just going to , they're not going to do waiters there . So you had several camps and everyone spoke so confidently about it until at one point there was a photo that got leaked of a pair of Sitka waiters . I don't remember who leaked it , but I'm for sure we know who it was .

I can't remember who it was and it was for sure leaked on Sick of Gear Fanatics page .

Yeah and uh , I went up there with with jonathan , uh and I had a pair of the waiters and they were unreleased and we had I , I didn't have an NDA , we just had an understanding like hey , don't share this , but you got to know , man , these companies are counting on you to leak stuff . It is part of the process .

Like I don't feel like this is exposing too much , because who cares at the end of the day ? But like they want the excitement . There's no way everything is going to stay secret forever . They know that someone's going to share it and it's going to get sent . Oh , check this out .

There's a little picture of the boot , you know , and somebody's like what is that ? And it gets sent around , just enough that everyone is talking about it and guess what ? They win ? They're coming out anyway . It's like a song leaking you know . it's guess what they win . They're coming out anyway . It's like a song leaking .

It fuels the fire because you just want to know more . You just want to know more , and so we got into the bourbon in North Dakota .

Um , I will not share it , but I posted a video essentially just saying like a bunch of hypotheticals about the waiters , like I'm sure guys have sick and wanted to come out with waiters , and I was saying all these things that were true and the waiters were hung up on a ladder behind me in the video , yes , and so many people missed it .

They were like there's gonna have a clue what he's talking about . And the mistake I made was that Jonathan is in the frame . So I have the founder , who's still employed in the frame , and I posted it in Sitka Fanatics . Within 10 minutes his phone is blowing up from people at Gore , people at Sitka . I'm texting you . The people at Sitka want .

At that point they were like we have to shut down what's going on in Sitka Gear Fanatics , like they wanted full access . I was like no , no , dog , this is all organic . That's not how this works . Yeah , you don't own that group . Yes , and it was a storm . I felt a lot of anxiety the next day for what happened .

Yeah , I've got videos of that too , and he's calling the shot and I'm like bro the dog , I need the dog to not have ducks landing on his head . Okay , just call the shot , like 50 yards anyway . So , yeah , that was fall of 17 yeah , I think .

It was kind of one of those times where , like , the good thing , you know , is only so good for so long , so long , and it starts getting cluttered and other people are getting in there , and then people want control , and I don't remember at what point , but there was somebody that worked for the organization that reached out to me and wanted me to give them

ownership and I was like well , how about you buy it ? You know , that'd be great , cause like you didn't start it , but what does it matter ? So , anyways , I think I ended up just removing myself from the group , and somebody else was , and then I don't even remember how it all went down from there .

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Anyway , long time ago , all of that led to a group text with some friends . I can't I can't . I can't actually share any of that , other than we decided the next year we would all go hunt at connor nevis , and you came up there , and I still have some amazing photos that you took from that hunt .

Um , there's so many other places we could go , but that was a fun one . That was the one that um , if I remember correctly , brian mallett ordered us all those hoodies . Yes , with the goose on them . It's like a scene of canada geese flying through the snow , and we all had matching snow hoodies for the trip like the late .

I won't get into that , but that's a funny one .

Uh , and we were trying to figure out a place to go and I didn't . I remember now the , the incidental colin , uh , I guess . Seminar , yes , he gave . Do you remember that ?

If you followed along southern oak for a while , you've you've seen like the one that had the big black and white banner above it , and it was like a barn turned into a lodge and I had a big tv on a little roller and colin was in my office editing photos by himself and the computer was casted onto the big screen and I walk in in my lodge and like six

photographers are sitting on my couches , glued , glued , and I was like , what are y'all doing ? And they're like I was like there's no volume . And they were like , don't talk , like colin is editing and like it was like a master class on photoshop . And uh , it was true , it was cool to see his .

Like you know , I baked up , you know edit editing style was awesome . And uh , uh , yeah , anyway , the uh learning the flair man . He was flaring . There was like a just a straight shot of a boot and he got done . I was like , is that taken in heaven ?

Well , there is a bar here that's phenomenal . It's called the Blue Canoe and my buddy , adam , owns it . He goes every day and he gets the leftover donuts from Connie's and he makes blueberry donut bread pudding , and I think we were just going to get

some wings and some bread pudding , maybe , and we sat . There's so much that came from this , but we sat outside and I , yeah .

But uh , I was telling the story of this dog had bit me in the thumb Christmas the year before and uh , it was bad . It got infected like severely infected on Christmas day and I had to have an operation . And I'm not going to go too deep into it Cause I would like to finish this podcast but eventually I don't . I can't wake you up .

But I'm telling the story of the thumb and I was going into some graphic detail about it and Reagan just stands up . And actually I was telling the story of when I had to run my own pick line my IV and I was at Bill free's house running my pick line in their shower and I forgot to clamp it and it was a bad situation , really bad situation .

And I was telling that story we're talking about b-l-o-o-d and reagan just got up and disappeared , like literally just I thought you're just going to the bathroom , man , yeah , and this , uh , I'm getting in trouble for this . But this hispanic guy comes running over to our table and he goes . I'm looking for martin martin . And I was like , uh , I'm barton .

And he goes . Man , your friend just passed out , man . And I was like what he said , yeah , so reagan has walked over by the cornhole , I guess . Oh , you , I don't know what , all you remember dude .

But Barton is sitting at the table and just describing in detail the amount of blood that's losing , trying to run this PICC line into his arm , and I just get a visual and all of a sudden I just lose all the blood out of my head and I'm like I got to get up and walk around , so I leave .

I'm trying to find the bathroom and you can imagine I'm going to pass out at any second and I'm like I've just got to find something . And so I literally just went . There's an outside bar and there's a place where people were playing cornhole and I just leaned up against this bar and the next thing I know is I'm laying on the ground .

There's probably 15 college kids standing over me going dude , you got to get up , they're going to throw you out because you're so drunk . And I'm like and like , I'm trying to figure out like what just happened . And then it hits me . I'm like , oh my god , I just passed out . And so this person who's standing there , he's like do you have any friends here ?

And I'm like , yes , find my friend barton . And then that's when the guy goes and yells oh yeah , good for martin martin . The funny , the funniest thing is I end up going , they put me on a couch , I got to feeling better and it's like it's kind of like time to leave .

And then there's like a band that starts playing and you're like , hey , you want to just go sit in the truck for a while while we listen to this band .

They were so good that Bethany , myself , corey and all of our friends went back the next night and then I found out the singer was dating our nanny , our kid's nanny . Wow , all that came from you passing out , cause I wouldn't have even gone inside . I went inside to get a water for you and that they're playing .

We go back out and I was like , hey , they sound pretty good . Like maybe I remember being like hey , you cool if we just listened to a couple of songs , and literally I think it was like an hour and a half . We were in there and Corey was like , isn't Reagan in the truck ?

And I was like he doesn't drink , he hasn't had anything to drink . He's had water . He's just I don't know what's wrong . Uh , guess I've overshared about my blood situation . Uh . So around that time , uh , when you and I mean we were friends before you got Remy but we really started talking a lot , um , total shift of gears here .

But you had a what I consider to be a fantastic idea . Uh , I had history in ministry , uh , as a student pastor and then a family discipleship pastor , and I think at that time I was still actually working in , or at , the church of trace crossing , because I worked there until 2017 . So , yeah , yeah .

So around then , um , and you had this great idea called purpose . Um , I would love for folks to hear . I know several people who listen listen to this have seen and asked me about purpose . So I'd love for you just to kind of share the origin story behind purpose and how it got to be where it is today .

My parents were highly involved in church and I would say , towards the end of high school I was , you know , in the youth group , very involved in our youth group , and then , post high school , just always kind of had this calling to invest in younger kids and other people and create community where people could come together and just talk about real life things ,

you know , talk about things that we go through as Christians . You know that you go through as dads , husbands , friends , whatever . And so you know , I would say it was around 20 , we had the first one in 2018 , but it was probably like early 2018 , 2017 . I was on my way to a meeting .

I was literally , I remember it , like yesterday I was sitting in the Schlotzky's Deli

parking lot waiting to have a lunch meeting with somebody , and God just put it on my heart to start kind of like a Bible study with a handful of other guys that were roughly my age and younger than I am , but all of us , um , hunted together .

We all kind of shared the same the , the , the common bond of , of hunting and outdoor recreation and and everything that comes with that .

And so we started this Bible study and we actually went through the book um from John Eldredge um Wild at Heart , yes and went through that book over the course of a couple of months and I want to say this was probably summer of , I guess , 2018 .

I don't remember really when and towards the end of it it kind of just came across my mind like , hey , we should get together and let's hunt together , let's carve out a couple of days to come together .

We all stay at the same place , spend multiple days together , and then , not only that , let's bring in other people that we know from other places who are like-minded , like us and would want to be involved in something like this .

And so , you know , there was , I'd say , six or seven guys here in Tulsa that had been in the Bible study with me , and then another four , five , six guys from several other states .

And that's kind of where the importance of social media , going back to the early conversation of , you know , connecting with other people online who not only enjoy waterfowl hunting but also , you know , love Jesus and want to be better men at the end of the day , and that's kind of what it was birthed out of . And so I called Barton , and this was .

I actually worked at a golf course back then as a membership sales director and photography was just a hobby at the time .

But I remember calling Barton and saying , hey , you know , we've been doing this Bible study and saying , hey , we've been doing this Bible study and I kind of just have this idea about bringing guys together who love Jesus and want to be better men and just carving out a couple of days where we can hunt , have good community , have a teaching once or twice

throughout the day , but at the end of the period just create solid community time together and create an environment where guys could be vulnerable with one another in ways that you can't get that in day-to-day life . And so thus was born this idea called purpose and it was centered around guys coming together to really seek what God's purpose is on their life .

To you know to become better husbands , to become better dads , to become better friends . To you know to get vulnerable and honest with one another about you know what you're going through , whether that's self-doubt , you know , or the fear of starting your own business . Or you know , pornography , addiction , drug addiction , alcohol , like what , whatever it be .

And so , yeah , I called Barton and said , hey , I want to do this , I would love for you to be involved in it , because you at the time had a tremendous amount of influence on people .

And so , you know , barton not only attended but also fronted , you know , a good portion of money to launch it the first year , because you also got to understand , this was a group of guys that were I mean , I would say we had 13 or 14 guys there the first year and eight or nine of them were still in college and so everybody's broke .

You know , nobody's got any money . It's like , hey , let's spend three days hunting nonstop and find a place to stay in a lodge and all of the things , but oh , by the way , everybody can only afford like $123.73 through all three days . And so , fast forward .

We found a lodge it's actually where my wife and I got married just outside of Tulsa , but there's just a beautiful older couple that had built really a facility mostly for Christian ministries to come and stay , and then we used it as a place to stay while we were hunting .

But the first year , which I believe was 2018 , january of 2018 , was 2018 , january of 2018 . We had Barton Corey came with you as well . Connor Neva came down . Who else was from out of town ? I'm trying to remember who .

It was the first year , but , long story short , came together and just had a fantastic time of just good devotion and quality time spent together .

There's some phenomenal photos and videos from that hunt , but we pretty much had way too many people four a-frames killed a banded goose right off the bat killed I don't even know how many birds , so many ducks and honkers off that pond it was . We stayed out there all day . Yeah , uh , somebody went , got pizza , like just connor , there's .

There's the epic photo of connor wearing wearing the headband and the wig , I guess yeah it was a wig coming , yeah and that was before turtle boxes , and we had a jbl speaker and someone has a video of I was playing the top gun theme song , yeah , and some and a gadwall came in and somebody smoked it while that song was blaring and , uh , like one of the

most fun days of hunting with friends and then going back and talking in the word , talking about jesus , talking about how to , like you said , how do we , how are we better ? Uh , as men , as dads , husbands , all that . Well , not a lot of us were dads at that point . Most of us are now . Uh , and then we went and hunted . Uh , where'd we go ?

We went hunting with Bluestem .

We drove all the way out to Perry to hunt , which is over by I-35 , and then we ended up driving all the way up to Blackwell . So we hunted with Jarrett Melton back when Jarrett was running Bluestem in the early days , and then we drove north and hunted with zach uh , what's his name ?

It was unreal and we did it all basically for free yep , we did it for next , for next to nothing but you're right , we traveled too much and so I guess , in an effort to find , uh , a place to kind of have home base I don't even know how this connection happened , but you found the Falco guys- I did so and this is , you know , this is how God works ,

you know , when it's right , like he's always going to open up doors for something to grow and for you to continue to walk through .

We had that event in January and then , sometime in late spring , somebody introduced me to Josh Teff and JD Black and ended up texting him and , you know , finding out these guys are building a five-star hunting lodge an hour and a half from Tulsa , you know , and they live in Arkansas , and so we were chatting it up and they were going to be passing through .

They were , they live in and around Fayetteville and , I think , other areas of northwestern Arkansas , but they pass right through Tulsa on their way to get to the lodge . And so they were coming back from checking out the construction because at the time , the lodge was like half done . This probably would have been June or July of 2018 .

And , long story short , made a connection with them . We ended up having lunch together .

Didn't even talk about purpose , just talked about , you know , common connections and people that we knew and , just you know , got to know one another and I think , going into it , I thought , oh , these are just , you know hardcore hunting guys who they're probably going to cuss at the table and tell crazy stories and kind of all of the things which was kind of

common for outfitters in general , for you know , if you ever went to hunt with different people at the time , and so um turns out they had um , almost all of them . So there was Josh , jd and Aaron , and all of them had their kids with them and they were just stand-up , godly men who love their families and love the Lord and want the best .

And I remember walking away and God just put it on my heart Like , hey , you need to call them and tell them about purpose and you need to ask them to participate . And so I think it was that night or the next night after we had lunch , I sent him a long text , said hey , I have this group of guys . We came together for the first time this past year .

It's centered around finding your purpose as men , becoming better followers of Christ and creating a community , and on and on and on . And literally without hesitation he said we want to be involved , come on , come on . And then I followed up with well , so my guys are really broke and they don't have a lot of money and Falco's pretty expensive .

And literally his exact words were you know , I don't care how much money you guys bring , you can bring nothing . We're going to host you , no matter what . And then was birthed Purpose at Falco in 2018 , which , if you've listened to the podcast with JD he talks about , you know us being the first group that was there in 2018 .

That kind of all kicked it off .

But I pulled up and I was like , oh and I'm going to Depp's on the short list , so he will , we'll save that story too . But you know , I drove up and I'm like man , this place is unreal . And I remember they were still pulling some plastic off some of the mattresses to make the beds , because it was no one has stayed .

They hadn't even hung all the pictures on the wall yet . It was very , very new and those guys were so excited to be launching , but also so excited to have us and I do think we probably were the first . We were a perfect group to do the beta test . Yes , because we didn't . I don't even want's get it , let's because we didn't . I gave us a mountain .

Want to quote numbers ? They gave us a massive discount and barely charged us anything at all . We shot skeet that first night Again , killed the mess out of birds .

We had one of the best goose hunts I've ever been on , killed a band First day , first goose hunt in a dry field , and then we went and sat on like a half an acre pond and shot the mess out of malers . The wind was ripping , uh . I'll never forget that day .

Matt goodrich took his shirt off and had his uh , he just had his delta waiters or delta bib suspenders on , and I've got a picture of him with snot running all the way across his face .

Good times , um , he's great and man that back then we did it in november , did it november a few times and then switched gears and went to february , to the late goose , uh , to accommodate the falco guys , and man , it's , it's grown into something that's very special . Um , so that would have been 2018 .

We had it in November the first two years and then we moved it to late goose season in the remaining the last , I guess , four or five years . But you know , the amazing thing about purpose and all the different people that have came through is the impact that God always has on at least one or two specific people .

You know , you look back and you say what was significant about this year . There's always , you know that , that one or two people who got something out of it that they weren't expecting , and I think that's that's . You know that's the reason that we do it .

You know there's there's a number of of other reasons , but you know , I , I look back and there's just , you know , god's hands just been on it every single year because the quality of the people there and the impact , and a lot of times the event occurs at just the right time in somebody's life .

And I'll never forget we weren't sitting in the lodge , we were sitting up in the guide check . We were kind of all circled up and it was the last night it was Saturday night out of three nights that we come together and we're sitting around as a group and we're kind of going around the room and we're sharing .

And for anybody who knows Sam , sam's dad , mitch Dunnick , he's a doctor . He also owns or he has , I guess you could say he runs a nonprofit called In His Image Ministries who does global medical missions , work just around the world .

But we're sitting in this group and Sam begins to share about a miscarriage that him and his wife had and it's , you know , it's very upsetting , and then proceeds to say , you know , and on top of that I just found out the day before I got here that we had another miscarriage . Like I didn't .

I didn't know that that happened His dad's sitting right next to him on the other side . His dad had had no idea and this was something that he came into that weekend just carrying . You know just what could feel like the weight of the world .

And you have a moment where he's vulnerable and he's honest and just lets kind of lets it all go and talks from his heart . And then you have guys that come around and lay hands on him and pray for him and pray for his wife and his family . And then now fast forward . They've got two beautiful kids and they've got a third one on the way .

So , to see a guy who's usually such like a come behind you and push you forward , you know , in fact , that year he and I ran a couple of times and , uh , I know he was dragging me around , I could tell it was like he's on cruise control right now , taking an easy one , and he's just such a like a to your word , like to have to be able to have guys

come around , someone in a moment like that . You , you miss those if you don't create the opportunity . Yeah , it's not

ever manufactured . You don't ever know who it's going to be . Yeah , or what's going to happen . I mean , I can think of and you don't ever , even the moment , you don't always know what's happening . I mean , we've , we've had one of the years that I usually , at least every other year , try to try to share one of the nights and we don't make it .

This isn't like going to youth camp , you know what I mean . Like , for those of you listening like we hunt , we have a cocktail , we cook , we shoot skeet , we ride out around on can-ams and take pictures of dogs . Like we play around . You know we have fun .

It's still a hunting trip , but some of the things that make it different are we do pray together , we spend intentional time every day sharing something with purpose to be in god's word , to encourage one another .

Um , we've broken up into , you know , partners or I don't know how you want to call that , but , like , have having someone who's specifically wanting to encourage you , like your jobs , to keep up with one another .

I think that's great , um , but even still , like I've , I remember a couple years ago , I I shared um and was like cool , and bethany was like how was ? I was like it was great . You know , it's good time , everybody was encouraging , you know .

And like , months later , I get a text from Clay Forrest who at the time , was really going through a stressful stressful I mean , they're building Stewart Ranch and he sends this big heartfelt text about the impact on what was shared . And like I had no idea , I drove home , you , like I had no idea I drove home , you know what I mean .

And you're just like the Lord has used these things that have happened in and through the event that you started to , I think , really have a positive impact on so many men's lives . And I'm saying that , well , we can keep talking about purpose .

I do want to keep talking about a few stories , but I'm saying that because this isn't some like super novel idea , right , that you can't replicate .

Yep , it's like hey , and one of the things that I really enjoy about it is I do think there's a level to like duck camp or an element of duck camp where oftentimes and I'm specifically speaking to guys who are listening , who are believers If you're a Christian you can drive home feeling kind of dirty , yep , like maybe it was whatever we were talking about the

fire pit got out of hand , maybe it was a little too much drinking , maybe it's a massive combination of things , and you just kind of feel like Maybe it was a little too much drinking , maybe it , maybe it's a massive combination of things , and you just kind of feel like you need like a , like a spiritual shower . You know what ?

You know there's always grace and and , but there is something awesome to be said about getting guys together and on the drive home and you feel not just closer to Christ but truly encouraged by the guys you've been around to go home and lead your family well , to go home and run your business in a way that honors the Lord , to treat clients the way you want

to be treated . These things that come up in these conversations when you're talking to a godly man like Mitch , guys who have been there and done that , or just friends that you realize are going through similar struggles that you have and you can encourage one another All of that stuff can be done . You just have to be intentional about it .

You know , on the outside you want it to look like your marriage is happy and healthy and your kids are fantastic and you have the best job or you've . You know you're running the best business or you know all of these different things , but on the backside , like you're , you're struggling . You know your business is struggling .

You're struggling to find your identity .

Your , your marriage is is on the rocks , like you know , and you know guys are struggling with alcohol , guys are struggling with pornography , guys are you know all of these different things and it becomes like this weight that you carry and there's not a lot of opportunities , you know , in a day-to-day circumstance where you can offload that weight and just talk to

somebody about it without feeling like you're going to be judged . You know that you're going to say something that you shouldn't , and so you know Purpose was created to provide that environment're going to say something that you shouldn't . And so purpose was created to provide that environment for guys to just come together and talk .

And it's like you said , it's not a regimented youth camp and there's not hours of the day that we do X , y , z , but it's just creating an environment where guys can have community , because I think at the end of the day , that's what you crave , and being able to do it without distraction .

Because then it's like you said , you come back rejuvenated , you know , you come back in , and I think in a lot of times and I've experienced this as well you go off on a road trip to hunt , you know .

You go on a fishing trip or whatever it be , and you go without your family and oftentimes you kind of get comfortable with not having , you know , your spouse or your kids around and worrying about other things , and it's hard to come home after that .

But purpose it's like you have a place where you're like man , I can't wait to go home and love on my wife and appreciate her and to love on my kids and to be present and intentional with that time . And that's what purpose does . And even if you're not impacted while you're there , you know , in some super significant and spiritual way .

You leave rejuvenated , ready to go back home and be the person that God's called you to be .

It's like , hey , like I hear about that all the time , like man , we have a lot going on , but my wife really wanted me to be here and I'm like that is such a testament where the opposite is usually true Like , hey , please don't go , can you sit this one out , you know ?

So , anyway , if you're out there listening and you have a group of guys , all it takes is having a couple conversations and being intentional about it . You can find a way to do something , something similar , and you're welcome to reach out to myself , to reagan , and we would love to help .

And anyway , it's been , uh , it's been , that's been an incredible journey and there's been some , some fun , fun stuff and some great photos . My favorite photos were the , the frozen tundra hunt .

I mean , yeah , we hunted the , the absolute frigid february 2021 , where I got stuck at falco that year , you know , uh , my noah and I did , and uh , that was when we were filming , for it was a long story . But after purpose , I got stuck at Falco .

But during purpose , I want to say that day it didn't get above maybe 10 degrees , the windchill was 12 below zero and I think that's when traditions over conditions was birthed A hundred percent . We kept saying it . That's a Falco slogan , that's on their hats Traditions over conditions . And everyone who complained about being cold was told that .

And poor Corey Wages was on the north end of the blind with a stout north wind and we were side shooting lessers I think we killed 140 something lessers , uh , and some snows , and he had arden and I had arden's half brother , cedar , on the south end of the blind , out of the wind completely .

And I'll never forget cory kept talking about how cold he was and , to be honest , I love him . He's a big old baby when it comes to being cold , like for sure , and a lot of my friends are .

And Noah was going back and forth to the truck to warm up and you came down from that end taking photos and sat with us and I'll never forget you sat down and you go . Man , it's way warmer down here . Oh man , I've got a video of bees coming in and your your camera just click , click , click , click , click , click , click , click . Just absolutely eaten .

That was a fun one .

I mean just coming in on the line the line .

When you kill stuff it gets the blood going and you feel so much better when you're shooting birds . Yeah , we've had a lot of good times at Purpose and the guys at Falco have not just been hosts , they've been part of the family for sure . It's been incredible to walk alongside those guys and have them involved and I always look forward to it .

And it's funny because it is the end of the season for me and I'm so over it . Like , by that time , all the it's hard If you don't travel and hunt a whole lot . You may be thinking , oh sure you know . No , for real .

Like being on the road with that many dogs , away from my kids , just living out of you know Sitka , duffel bags is it gets old and packing up to go to purpose . Most years I'm just like , oh , like , not because it's purpose , just because I don't want to leave one more time , and every year I get there and within 10 minutes I'm like man .

This feels like home , like I'm so glad to be with this group of guys and a man .

Anyway , thank you for the idea and uh , uh , I guess , um , the passion you've put into it , the thought you've put into it , and um , the uh I don't even know the word like you've , you've stuck with it , uh , because it would be easy to say , well , that was fun for a couple of years , but that's a lot of work . So see you later .

And it's not always easy to pull all these guys together .

you can hang out with . I can't believe how fast you found her .

tango through the kennel and you're like who's this ? I was like that's her that's her .

But it's funny because , you know , before we had kids , I would go train with her three to five days a week . She was in awesome shape , she marked amazingly well , she would do some really complicated stuff . Amazingly well , she would do some really complicated stuff . And then we had our first child , my son , in early 2019 .

And I don't know that we've trained together since then .

Are you going to use cornerstone or something to train it yourself ? And , yeah , like , you came in just the right time in your life to have the ability to train her , but it is a cool Testament to her and the training that you did early on , that you can still take her out and she doesn't really skip a beat , like that's .

That's pretty cool for me to hear , because I do think , as much as I would like to think , everybody can go , hunt and train and do the whole thing year round , all the time .

The reality is a lot of people have these dogs and they have multiple kids and they might hunt , let's just say , 20 times a year and they only be able to bring the dog 10 or 12 of those times . And , knowing that these dogs can be trained well and you know , as long as you keep them in physical shape , they can get out there and do it .

That's that's fun for me to know .

She has always been steady as a rock and she's a softer dog . You know it does not take much . She's not real spazzy and so it doesn't take much for you know me to . It doesn't take a lot of pressure , you know , in order for her to understand .

You know whatever she did was wrong , and even to this day I mean , like I said , we don't train really hardly at all over the last four or five years I'll run her , let her get some retrieves and kind of get some exercise in her before the season comes around . But she'll pick up 150 , maybe 200 birds a season .

It was so close to moving to tulsa see my pad here , though , like the , the property and all like , it's hard to find that out there . You know 20 acres with with access , where you're not so far away you know , yeah , yeah , and it's a lot .

There's everything ponds , rivers , fields , all of it .

You're no longer running the Sick of Gear Fanatics group , but you are active on social media , so how do they find your stuff ?

and running our own outfit and we do a number of different things , from photo and video work to branding , design , things like that . So , yeah , renfro Creative .

Even help like with ideas on how to move forward with your brand and what that looks like . Uh , reach out to reagan . He's he's got a lot of experience uh in that world and , and I would say , a lot of wisdom and a really good overall feel for what I would consider good branding . You know , proper branding , figuring out the way to do it right .

So , yeah , check them out . Renfro creative on the Instagram and yeah , thank you guys for for tuning in , for listening to us rant and ramble again . Uh , I always appreciate it and uh look forward to talking to you guys next time that we're on .