Jeff Gunnells, MD, an OBGYN at Henderson & Walton Women’s Center, spends much of his free time with his family at their farm Cedar Lake in Marengo County. He and his wife, Melissa, lease part of their 1,300-acre property for logging and farming. Gunnells and his sons, Drew and Taylor, often pursue their passion of bagging large bucks in the farm’s wilderness areas during deer hunting season.
The son of a Baptist minister, Gunnells also feels the call to share the blessing of his farm with others and has often invited friends there to hunt. One of those forays led to a new passion for Gunnells, helping young men tap into their potential by bringing them to Cedar Lake to develop their hunting skills and appreciation of nature.
Gunnells met Keith Denton, former director of Big Oak Ranch, a Christian home for children, at a charity golf event in the late 1990s. Denton’s wife was one of Gunnells’ patients. “I got to know him, and because we were both hunters, I invited him and his oldest son down to our place to hunt,” Gunnells says.
As time went on, Gunnells began talking to Denton about the concept of bringing boys from Big Oak Ranch to Cedar Lake so the boys could experience the challenge of hunting. Denton grew up at Big Oak Ranch himself and knew how much such an event would mean to the boys. He encouraged Gunnells’ idea. “At that time no one was doing this sort of thing with the ranch so we had to figure out how to make it work,” Gunnells says.
He began asking trustworthy fathers he knew if they would each volunteer to mentor a Big Oak Ranch boy in learning to shoot and hunt during a one-day event, perhaps also bringing down their own sons. “From a safety standpoint, especially because most of the Big Oak boys had never held a gun, I wanted to make sure each boy was properly supervised,” Gunnells says.
Six Big Oak boys participated in the first hunting trip eight years ago. The program has since expanded to about 15 boys now coming down for the day. Gunnells also offers a second annual hunting event for a small group of older boys, volunteer dads and their sons. The Big Oak boys look upon each Cedar Lake outing as a privilege and have to work hard on their studies to be chosen for it.
Gunnells and other fathers in his hunting program have gotten involved with the ranch in additional ways, volunteering and/or contributing financially. The volunteer fathers and other charitable individuals help Gunnells and his wife provide the boys with food, a hunting backpack with essentials for sitting in a deer stand all day, and plenty of ammunition for the shooting practice and hunting events. “We have the goal of allowing each boy to successfully shoot one doe,” Gunnells says.
The boys also learn how their hunting contributes to culling the deer population. Without culling the deer, the animals could quickly overrun food resources leading to eventually starving. “There are always many life lessons to be learned while hunting and spending time in nature. When you’re waiting in a deer stand for many hours you tend to talk more about things you wouldn’t normally discuss, which is great for the boys,” Gunnells says.
The program also allows Big Oak boys to witness healthy father-son relationships. Volunteer fathers and their sons become more aware of their many blessings. “When a boy grows up in a regular household where all his needs are met by his family, he really doesn’t realize how fortunate he is. Working with the Big Oak boys helps these other young men recognize just how good they have it. That’s an added benefit we didn’t anticipate when we first started this,” Gunnnells says.
The doctor and his wife additionally hold spiritual relationship retreats for couples at Cedar Lake. They have been working with various couples’ ministry programs for the past 19 years, primarily in association with their church, Dawson Memorial Baptist in Homewood. “When we were first planning for the couples retreats we thought we were going to have to build something really elaborate, but we were able to use space in our new barn for modest living quarters,” Gunnells says. “Sometimes when you think a dream would just take too much to realize, it’s good just to start with what you can do. And don’t be surprised if it ends up working out better than you expected.”
