Resort Creates ‘Legendary’ Experience

BITELY, Mich. — A G3 corporate Learjet dropped out of the clouds Sept. 1 to pick up Christopher Price at the Springdale Municipal Airport. Little more than an hour later, Price’s party descended for a dream whitetail deer hunt at Legends Ranch, a luxury sportsmen’s resort in Bitely, Mich.

With five square miles of managed deer habitat, Legends is a premiere destination for big-game enthusiasts who don’t mind spending $3,000 or more per week for the ultimate hunting experience. During Legends’ exclusive hunts in the November rut (mating season), it’s closer to $10,000 per person to chase trophy bucks.

The experience on Labor Day weekend, by all accounts, is what’s priceless.

World-renowned big game hunter Skipper Bettis, an outdoors author and star of numerous hunting videos, is the ranch’s managing owner and master guide/outfitter. He routinely dispatches the Legends Limo — a 20-seat “tricked out” stretch SUV — 66 miles south to Grand Rapids, Mich., or 30 miles to Fremont, Mich., to pick up high-profile guests.

Price got the royal treatment, but not because he’s a captain of industry or Safari Club kingpin. Price, 15, spends most days stuck in front of a TV or bashfully wheeling himself down the hallways of Greenland Junior High School.

He was born with spina bifida, a birth defect affecting one in 2,000 children in which bones of the spine do not properly form. Price was one of eight youngsters invited to the seventh annual Special Youth Challenge at Legends Ranch, a four-day event sponsored by Christian Sportsmen’s Fellowship International and several major corporations.

The special guests all suffer from serious illnesses or disabilities from progressed cancer to paralysis. They apply from across America for a dream hunt, and eight are chosen to attend.

The Northwest Arkansas Business Journal accompanied Price on his trip. Some of the participating corporations have been left anonymous upon agreement, based on those firms’ fears that various activist groups might misconstrue their participation.

One international retail supplier to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. dispatched the $3,500-per-hour transportation for Price in a way that some nonprofit executives said is rare in the land of bar-coded milk and honey. This out-of-state, Fortune 100 firm did not first ask, “At what level is Wal-Mart participating?” or “What exposure will we get to Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods for doing this?”

The supplier just heard about Price’s dream and sent the plane.

Price bagged an eight-point trophy buck on the first night. As a result, his stepfather Wendall Barron said, the teenager returned to Northwest Arkansas with renewed confidence and self esteem. Price’s legs may have never physically walked, Barron said, but he’s taken steps toward a richer life because of his journey as a sportsman.

“It’s hard for people who don’t have disabled kids to understand,” Barron said. “There is God’s work in what these companies do. You can say, ‘Thank you’ until you’re blue in the face, but words can’t describe what it means to the kids and families. You’d have to see your kid sitting on the sidewalk in a wheelchair at school watching everyone else play at recess because the school can’t afford handicapped equipment.

“What Chris will remember for the rest of his life is that for one weekend he fit in with the rest of the world and wasn’t an outsider. He came here and felt whole.”

Angels

Tyson Foods Inc. has been a contributor to Legends’ youth challenge. Greg Lee, the Springdale firm’s chief administrative officer and international division president, said the event is in keeping with Tyson Foods’ core values.

“Tyson Foods has a strong orientation around people, and taking care of children has been a longtime focus,” Lee said. “The Tyson family, for example, has over the years done a lot to support children with needs in education or with medical needs. This is an example of that consistent interest in trying to assist kids with special needs. It’s part of who we are as a company.”

This year, two executives — Mark Conklin, vice president of employee training at Chick-Fil-A Inc. in Atlanta, and a regional executive from a separate Fortune 10 company — were already on board the jet for Price’s trip. Conklin, who volunteers his personal time at Legends’ youth challenge, said he got involved four years ago because of his niece, who’s a leukemia survivor.

He said the kindness of others made a big difference for his family, and he sees the Legends youth challenge as a way to “pay it forward.”

“I feel like I show up with my teaspoon full of giving and walk away with a truckload full of blessings,” Conklin said. “I guarantee anyone who gets involved with this at any level — whether they contribute time, money, resources, their network or whatever —they’ll never give more than they take away.”

Disciples

Conklin and David King of Rogers, director of the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of CSF, helped Price apply for the trip. It was the second year the NWACSF helped sponsor hunters at Legends. King, a sales representative for Sigma Supply Inc. of Hot Springs, said Terry and Chris Rose of Northfork got to go in 2004.

Legends has started a nonprofit organization called Quest Ministries, which functions as a division of 501(c)(3) group Conservation Force Inc. and furthers the youth challenge. A link at www.legendsranch.com for anyone who’s interested is in the works.

King said he hopes more potential applicants will call him for next year’s hunt at (479) 872-8383. The kids get to hunt for free, but must provide their own transportation. Some firms have offered donations to pay for commercial airfare, but travel complications for the kids the last two years made private flights a blessing, King said.

He added that Bettis’ servant-leader approach to the camp is one of the things that makes the weekend a trip of a lifetime for the kids.

“When you first meet Skipper, he’s kind of a gruff old guy,” King said. “But to see a man of his stature kneel down on the same level with those kids, and to see his sincerity and heart at work is amazing. I think his true mission is to make those kids absolutely forget what’s going on the other 361 days of their year.”

Monsters

There are behemoths walking around Legends with freakishly large antlers. The only way to truly understand the type of whitetail grown at Legends is to visit its Web site. And the photos there don’t do justice to the volume of deer at the ranch.

Bettis is quick to point out that the ranch does not sell trophy deer — it sells an experience. If hunters are able to harvest a prize buck, that’s great, but the ranch’s rugged and diverse terrain make it “no turkey shoot.”

He also declined to release an estimate on the size of the herd, although it obviously is in the thousands. Even still, it’s common to see a bunch of deer from a Legends blind one night, and only a few the next. During the rut, guides frequently have to use antler-rattling techniques or even beat the bushes to find the real treasures.

Skipper Bettis’ son, Colby Bettis, is one of Legends’ senior guides and the marketing manager. Colby Bettis said Legends has a mature herd, and “there are 5-year-olds out there who’ve been around the block before.”

“We have our share of stories about the ones that got away,” Colby Bettis said. “There is one out there now that’s probably a 194 [on the Boone and Crockett Club score]. There’s a 31-point, non-typical out there. We pick up [antler] sheds on deer all the time though that we haven’t seen for three years. But it gets your blood pumping to know they’re there.”

Skipper Bettis said the class of deer that score 160-and-up on the Boone and Crockett Club system are “rare in the real world.” Legends harvests about 15 to 20 bucks that are 170-class and up in a good season.

Serving

Skipper Bettis said about 25 hunters from Arkansas and Texas make it to Legends each year. Guest books at the ranch include some prominent names from Northwest Arkansas’ corporate elite.

The ranch features a more than 10,000-SF lodge and dining hall that’s filled with more than 100 trophies from South Africa to Saskatchewan. They tell the story of Skipper Bettis’ 30 years as a professional hunting guide.

The resort has 22 beds available, including private and semi-private baths. Legends does a lot of corporate team-building events from January through March. Turkey season kicks in around April, and the ranch also offers professional pheasant hunts and fishing trips.

Legends has full-time and seasonal staff including a lodge coordinator, master chef and up to 11 guides.

Colby Bettis said because of competition in the whitetail business, Legends decided to focus on service. Most of Legends’ clients can go anywhere in the world to hunt, he said, so it can’t just be about big deer.

“You may not get a trophy deer, but at the end of the week, we’re going to be able to shake your hand and know we worked to give you a world-class experience,” Colby Bettis said.

Legends’ hunters run the gamut of those who’ve never hunted before, Colby Bettis said, to the real pros and “the guys who think they are and come here to teach us.” His biggest piece of advice is “know your rifle” before arriving.

A Religion

Cory Gray, a spokesman with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, cites a 2001 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study to illustrate the economic impact of deer hunting on Arkansas. The study found the total multiplier effect of deer hunting on the state to be more than $383 million.

That includes $212 million in retail sales, $89.3 million in related salaries, generated state income taxes of $4.3 million and more.

Nationwide, the same study said 10.9 million people hunted big game such as deer or elk that year. Hunting overall was estimated to be a $21.6 billion industry in 2001. That was up nearly 5 percent from an estimated $20.6 billion in 1996.

More than 49 percent of hunters in 2001 were age 35 to 54, and about a fourth of them had incomes of $50,000 or more.

Even with so much money to be made on the sport, Colby Bettis said his family has been blessed beyond what it deserves and it makes time to host the youth challenge to “glorify God.”

“I love hunting big deer,” Colby Bettis said. “But I love seeing the excitement in these kids’ faces, the sheer emotion that comes out of them and their parents.”

Price Keeps Aim on Life

When Christopher Price was born with spina bifida, doctors said he wouldn’t live three years. A curvature in his spine actually protruded through his back.

Price, 15, has undergone 13 operations and he still gets severe headaches from a lingering condition. Even though he’s confined to a wheelchair, the Greenland sportsman doesn’t flinch when asked if he gets frustrated with his disability.

“No,” Price said. “It’s just something I had to get over. God made me this way, so it can’t be wrong.”

In many respects, Price is a normal Arkansas teenager. He likes country music, playing video games and going hunting and fishing. He’s embarrassed by girls and in love with the Razorbacks.

But he’s overcome more than most. When he was in grade school, Price’s stepfather Wendall Barron said, the youngster came home one day and said some kids were making fun of him.

“He said they called him ‘retard,’ and one said God didn’t love him because he couldn’t walk,” Barron said. “I asked what he told them, and Christopher said, ‘I said God doesn’t mess up, and one day I’ll walk in heaven.'”

Barron said Price has been an inspiration. He recently earned his Hunter’s Education certificate and has become an excellent marksman. Barron said a Savage 7mm .08-caliber rifle that David King, director of the Northwest Arkansas Christian Sportsmen Fellowship, helped buy for Price has become the kid’s most prized possession.

“He takes care of that thing like it’s a little baby,” Barron said.

Barron said getting special needs kids out into the world is the key to keeping them motivated. Price also enjoys annual trips to Camp Aldersgate, a camp for special needs kids in Little Rock.

“You can’t set limitations for these kids because if you do, they’ll never reach their full potential,” Barron said. “Sometimes I get to thinking about bills, but then I look at Chris just struggling to get through the yard to check the mail.

“He has all of those medical problems, and he’s out there going anyway. Most of us really have nothing to gripe about.”