Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 28, 2026


Veteran, Honey Mogul, I Am Second Founder – Now Fighting for Clean Food ｜ Ron Simmons & Nate Sheets


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

202.98097

Word count

2,415

Sentence count

160


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Nathan Sheets is a fifth generation Texan who grew up in the Air Force and served in the U.S. Navy. He was a member of the Texas Rangers and served as the Chief of Staff to Governor Rick Perry. He is now a candidate for Texas Governor Greg Abbott's 2020 re-election campaign.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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00:01:09.020 Well, welcome Nathan Sheets to the Relatable Podcast. And I know you'd much rather have
00:01:14.900 Allie doing this. I get it. But I'll have to be second fiddle today. But so thank you so much for
00:01:22.020 coming on. I know you've got a limited amount of time. You're a busy man right now without with
00:01:26.380 Governor Abbott traveling the state. But what we wanted to do, and we're interested, of course,
00:01:31.140 in what's going on right now in your candidacy. But I wanted to also give you a chance to talk a
00:01:36.460 little bit about your background, Nate. Just give us just a couple of minute overview of
00:01:42.200 the Nate Sheets' first early growing up story. Where did you grow up? And maybe your parents,
00:01:48.560 that type of thing.
00:01:49.240 Yes. So my dad was an Air Force pilot. And so we moved every two years growing up, always on Air
00:01:57.000 Force bases, so up until high school. But my parents actually met in North Texas. My dad had just gotten
00:02:02.400 out of the Air Force Academy and met my mom when he was up in Sherman in flight training. And my
00:02:08.560 grandfather had been the Sherman band director for 55 years at the high school up there. And so
00:02:13.200 our roots were always in Texas. I'm a fifth generation Texan, but grew up, went to high school
00:02:18.840 and down in Hayes County, down south of Austin, and went into the Navy the day after I got out of
00:02:24.320 school to pay for college and came back and went to Southwest Texas State University and then moved
00:02:29.300 up to Dallas.
00:02:30.140 Yeah.
00:02:30.520 Oh, that's cool.
00:02:32.000 That's great. I mean, my dad was a band director as well.
00:02:35.220 Was he really?
00:02:35.980 Yeah, in Arkansas. And in fact, he turns 90 here in a couple of months. So his 90th birthday coming up.
00:02:42.840 So yeah, so I'm very familiar with high school band and all that type of stuff. And so you got
00:02:49.720 out of the Navy, went to college, and then where did life take you right after college?
00:02:56.080 Yeah, so I moved up to Dallas. My brother and I had started a little pen and pencil company,
00:03:00.020 kind of serial entrepreneur. And so I moved up to Dallas and then started attending Preston
00:03:05.580 Baptist Church, where you and I actually knew each other from and met there. But I also met my
00:03:10.120 lovely wife, Patty Sheets there. And we got married in 1996. But right after we got married,
00:03:16.960 we had a couple things that we did that kind of set a course for life that had no idea where it
00:03:21.600 was going to take us. But one thing I did is I went on a mission trip. And so I went down to
00:03:26.500 Valencia, Venezuela with a ministry called E3 Partners. And that resulted in me spending 12 years
00:03:32.340 in full-time Christian ministry. But also right after Patty and I got married, she told me that
00:03:37.120 we needed a hobby together. And I think she was thinking like scuba diving or antiques or,
00:03:42.560 but I wound up buying a beehive. And so that one beehive turned into what today is the largest
00:03:47.700 honey company in America called Nature Nates.
00:03:50.500 Tell us a little bit about your salvation experience, Nate. When did you,
00:03:55.060 did you grow up in the church? And did you later? Tell us about that.
00:04:00.040 Yeah. So my parents were believers. And so we were raised, you know, in a Christian home.
00:04:04.820 And when we were at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, I remember at First Baptist Dell City,
00:04:09.900 going down in front in fifth grade and committing my life to the Lord. And then I'll tell you,
00:04:16.020 just, you know, again, we moved every two years. And so we grew up in Baptist churches,
00:04:21.420 Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Pentecostal churches,
00:04:24.360 kind of wherever my parents had relationships with friends because we were there for such a
00:04:28.380 short period of time. But really the place where I experienced the most spiritual growth was after
00:04:33.320 I got out of college and actually joined Presswood Baptist Church. And I was in a discipleship group
00:04:37.640 with some guys. And one of them challenged me to get in this class called Evangelism Explosion,
00:04:42.380 which teaches you how to go out and go share the gospel. And so that probably had the greatest
00:04:47.520 impact on my life. And, you know, there's nothing, you always hear that the teacher learns more than
00:04:52.420 any student. And so just having the opportunity to really learn to be able to represent the death,
00:04:58.760 burial, and resurrection of Christ and understanding that salvific experience with Him,
00:05:03.840 you know, really transformed my life from a maturity standpoint. And really, God brought me on that
00:05:11.320 mission trip to actually go out and go learn how to do Evangelism. And so that just became a massive
00:05:16.440 part of my life. And tell us about, you know, coming out of that, you said, okay, I'm going to
00:05:22.000 join this mission field full-time with E3, what became E3 Partners. And then I want you to also tell
00:05:29.320 us just a little bit about I Am Second and also the Evangelique, because I know those were things that
00:05:34.800 came out of that as well. And just maybe how that all, how that all happened.
00:05:39.080 Yeah, I'll tell you, it was such an awesome experience. You know, I never wanted to go to
00:05:44.420 seminary. I never even thought I'd be in full-time ministry. I was just a business guy that went on
00:05:48.280 a mission trip that changed my life. And so when I wound up going on staff at E3, I was asked to
00:05:54.580 come on staff. And I guess that was in the fall of 1997. And I asked Mike Downey, who was the founder,
00:06:00.680 he was also the guy that led my mission trip, when he said, hey, why don't you come on staff with us?
00:06:04.420 I said, you guys have to raise support like a missionary, right? And he said, yeah.
00:06:07.340 And I said, well, I'll have to think about that. So we prayed about it for a couple months,
00:06:14.040 and we felt like that's what the Lord wanted us to do. And so it was such a great experience for me,
00:06:20.360 because I felt like I was giving to live out my personal testimony of both learning how to
00:06:25.280 articulate the gospel and then mobilizing people on short-term mission trips. And so God gave us
00:06:30.300 in 2000, this idea for this one thing called an Evangelique cube. It looks like a Rubik's cube.
00:06:35.000 And it's got seven pictures that represent the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And so
00:06:39.640 we started equipping believers all over the world. It was amazing. We'd go to India and train,
00:06:45.200 you know, 20,000 Indian pastors and give them Evangelique cubes to be able to go out in their
00:06:50.000 communities and share the gospel. And then the second evangelism tool that the Lord allowed us
00:06:54.740 to create was a platform called I Am Second. And it's an online evangelism platform. Norm Miller had
00:07:01.200 called me up and was sharing with me about- And Norm was the president of Interstate Batteries
00:07:05.760 at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. He was the CEO of Interstate Batteries. And he was just
00:07:10.540 sharing with me that he was having a conversation with the Lord in his backyard on his 70th birthday
00:07:14.580 and just asking God, what do you want from me for the rest of my life? I got maybe 15,
00:07:18.960 20 years. And he felt like God said, well, have you ever gone for broke in your Jerusalem?
00:07:22.700 And he's thinking, well, you know, I funded the Jesus Film Project in Romania and Russia.
00:07:28.220 But, and he's telling me this on the phone. He says, but Nathan, if I was going to go try to
00:07:32.960 sell more batteries, I'd probably do an advertising campaign. And if I was going to do an advertising
00:07:37.300 campaign in Dallas, Fort Worth, I'd probably use Tony Romo. And man, as soon as God's, as soon as
00:07:43.480 he said that to me, the Lord put this idea in my head. And I said, all right, Norm, imagine you're
00:07:46.980 driving down the tollway and you see this billboard and it's got Dirk Nervinsky on it. He's the man.
00:07:51.140 He's number one. And that says, I am second. And it drives you to this website. And we show you
00:07:56.700 Dirk test, Dirk's testimony, share the gospel with you and try to hook you up into a local church.
00:08:01.500 And said, Norm said, all right, let's get together in a week and see. And, uh, and let's talk about
00:08:05.900 it. So I hung the phone up and this guy, Adam Lydick, who worked with me at E3 was sitting on
00:08:10.580 the other side of my desk. And Adam was a creative genius and said, man, that's huge. Walked out of the
00:08:15.200 room with a, came back with a white piece of paper and wrote, I am second. And that was the beginning
00:08:20.500 of what turned into, I am second. We went over and showed it to Norm and he gave us 3 million
00:08:25.660 bucks. And so, um, it was an amazing thing. Yeah. And those of you that are watching, listen
00:08:31.120 to this, if you haven't heard of that, uh, just all you have to do is Google it or search
00:08:35.480 for it. It's on there. There's some great testimonies, uh, through there, but then, then
00:08:39.560 also during this time, your, your wife still, you are still doing this, you know, small honeycomb
00:08:44.480 business. And then you said, okay, well, the next thing was to take that bigger. Is that
00:08:49.940 right? And I know it was part of it had to do with one of your relatives that had some
00:08:53.720 health issues, right? Uh, yeah, my mom had, uh, Alzheimer's and, and, uh, and cancer. And
00:09:00.300 so she had, uh, been negatively impacted by that, but I, uh, took that one beehive and started
00:09:06.860 getting into it. And you know what, Ron? Um, I hate this, but the governor there right
00:09:12.020 here, I've got to go. Um, 10 seconds left though. I want people to, they can, they can
00:09:18.520 look up Nate's honey, but tell us what you're doing at public service. What's your, what's
00:09:23.100 your trying to get done? Listen, I'm running to be a Texas agriculture commissioner because
00:09:26.840 we're losing, losing agriculture like never before. And we have a pandemic of health crisis
00:09:32.700 related to the food that we're eating in America. And so, um, I've come alongside to be able
00:09:38.100 to run for the Texas ag commissioner. I've been endorsed by governor Greg Abbott. I want
00:09:41.600 to make agriculture great again, and we're going to get out there and help farmers and
00:09:46.540 ranchers. We lost 68 farms this week and, uh, and we don't have to continue to do that.
00:09:50.980 So you can go see more at natesheats.com and, uh, and show, and you can see how we're trying
00:09:57.080 to impact Texas and help clean up the food that we all eat. Well, thank you, Nate. I appreciate
00:10:01.040 that. Give my best to the governor and, uh, just be safe out there. Thank you, buddy.
00:10:05.280 All right. Bye-bye. Take care.
00:10:11.060 Nathan then decided that his, his honey business was growing and he built that into the largest
00:10:17.940 honey company in the world, put his cell phone on every jar of honey. And he would answer his
00:10:24.680 cell phone in the middle of the night. I've heard him tell the stories about that, put a
00:10:28.340 nice Bible verse on every one of those. So like Chick-fil-A, like Norm Miller, he followed
00:10:34.600 in the footsteps of those businessmen and like the greens with Hobby Lobby that not only walk,
00:10:42.060 you know, talk the talk, but walk the walk in their business world to help build the kingdom.
00:10:47.720 And then he's been called in to potentially be a part of public service. Nobody knows what's
00:10:52.020 going to happen. The primary elections next week. And I'm not sure if he'll win or not. I, you know,
00:10:57.720 I'll support him, but, uh, you know, there's, you never know. Sometimes God calls us into something.
00:11:03.780 I remember when I first decided to run for public office, I didn't know if I would win or not,
00:11:08.120 but I knew for sure that God had called me to be in the middle of it. And so I did that and was
00:11:14.680 fortunate enough to win. I'm not sure whether Nate will or not, but I know that he, this whole experience
00:11:19.720 has probably changed him and he's probably seen a lot of good and a lot of bad, but he's committed,
00:11:25.000 uh, to, uh, trying to help Texas, uh, you know, live a healthier life and the department of
00:11:31.340 agriculture in Texas is a big part of doing that. But I just thought it was an interesting
00:11:35.080 interview, even though it was pretty short, there was some real nuggets in there. So I hope you'll
00:11:39.860 take those and listen to it. And, uh, we'll, maybe we'll be able to have Nate on again in the future,
00:11:45.240 but thank you for supporting Allie's podcast. Don't forget to get your share of the arrows
00:11:49.060 tickets. They're available, um, online and we'll look forward to seeing you soon. Take care.