Life and Legacy of Cecil O'brate

Floor Speech

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Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Cecil O'Brate, who passed away on January 20 at the age of 95.

Cecil was born in 1928 at the beginning of the Great Depression. Throughout his childhood, he worked countless jobs to help support his family, eventually moving from Oklahoma to Kansas to farm 3,000 acres of rented Kansas farmland with his grandparents when he was 18. There, he met the love of his life, Frances Cole, with whom he celebrated 76 years of marriage together last year.

By 1966, Cecil had invested in agricultural equipment manufacturing and, by 1984, he had become an oil and gas producer in Kansas.

At the end of his life, Cecil was the largest independent oil and gas producer in the entire State of Kansas, and he owned those original 3,000 acres that he rented in 1948, along with farmland across Kansas and Colorado--the fruits of a lifetime of tireless work and ingenuity.

Cecil was a jack-of-all-trades. In addition to farming, equipment manufacturing, and oil and gas production, Cecil was a community bank owner, an ethanol producer, and a real estate developer.

In 2013, Cecil and Frances established the O'Brate Foundation, which has provided nearly $7 million in college scholarships to students, many of whom grew up in poverty and in the foster care system. Cecil was also a major benefactor to his beloved Oklahoma State University, making transformational investments in the university's athletics programs.

Cecil lived by his motto, ``Make it Happen.'' He once said, I have found no substitute for an honest day's work, an inquisitive mind, and a desire to always do more.

In all that he did, Cecil lived out the Kansas conservative values of faith, family, hard work, personal responsibility, and love for your neighbor.

Cecil was a loving father and a devoted husband who was blessed to live long enough to meet his great-great-granddaughter. His legacy of generosity and leadership will be missed dearly.

To Cecil's wife, Frances; his 4 sons, Patrick, Michael, Steve, and Mark, along with their wives; and his 8 grandchildren, 12 great- grandchildren, and his great-great-granddaughter, as well as his business partners and the entire American Warrior family, my thoughts and prayers are with you as you remember Cecil's legacy of love.

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