From main street to marble halls

How House Speaker Kyle Hilbert’s Depew roots shape his leadership and his measure of success: leave it better than you found it.

Sunset falls across downtown Depew and settles on the old storefronts like it has all its life. The concrete ribbon of original Route 66 cuts straight through town. The official highway moved long ago, but the history stayed put. A handful of buildings sit empty, yet they stand steady, carrying the story of an oil boom that once filled these streets with noise and fresh paint and hope. Today the sound is quieter. A truck idles. A screen door snaps shut. Someone calls out a greeting from across the road.

With a population of around 400, you don’t just pass through Depew. You move slowly because someone will wave. Someone will stop you and ask how your parents are doing. It happens again and again while Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, walks Main Street. Each car that rolls by brings a new grin. He nods toward a passing sedan and laughs. “That’s my grandma.” Another vehicle rounds the corner and he lifts a hand. “Oh, that was my cousin.”

Hilbert grew up on these streets, in this small town in Creek County. Depew carries its own pace. The people teach you lessons and expect you to live by them. Truth matters because there is no place to hide. Integrity matters because stories travel fast. Although Hilbert now finds himself in the Capitol’s marble hallways, these are the principles that continue to inform his leadership as the youngest House speaker in Oklahoma state history.

Small town, big impact

This is the community that raised him — the kind of place where basketball games filled the calendar and family showed up even when it meant late nights followed by early mornings.

“We did not come from money,” he says. “But my parents pulled up their bootstraps and worked hard, still making it a priority to be at every game and event.”

That steady presence shaped him. So did the expectation that if you commit to something, you follow through, even when it’s inconvenient and people may or may not be watching.

“I try to live the same way now,” he says. “Be honest. Be where you said you’d be. It’s not complicated. It just takes discipline.”

He laughs when he remembers his FFA days, especially the speech contests that did not come as naturally as public speaking does now.

“I was bad at it. Really bad,” he says. “But I had a great ag teacher, Mr. Brian Campbell. He pushed me, and I learned to be coachable.”

Although Hilbert had a lengthy résumé of leadership positions, including serving as Student Government Association president at Oklahoma State University, running for office was not part of a grand life plan. It started with a phone call from his former ag teacher, echoing encouragement from Hilbert’s dad.

However, he was planning to propose to his now-wife, Alexis, and he did not have his sights set on asking for his future father-in-law’s blessing while also pursuing a career in politics. Alexis encouraged him that this was a path they could navigate together.

He laughs when he describes that stretch of months when he moved home from college, worked in the family business, ran a campaign and got married — the equivalent, he says, of riding a roller coaster without brakes.

After being elected to represent Oklahoma House District 29, Hilbert spent three sessions as Speaker Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and three years as vice chair of the Appropriations and Budget Committee. Working so closely with the budget opened up a new leadership trajectory.

Making history

In January 2025, he was elected House speaker, becoming the youngest in Oklahoma state history and only the second Republican speaker 30 years old or younger in any state since 1873. No matter the title, Hilbert insists leadership is mostly about trust.

“People often talk about members of the Legislature as if they work for me — and that’s not how it works at all,” he says. “In fact, I work for them.”

He describes the balance as listening while also casting a vision. The role itself, he breaks into three parts: policy, administration and campaigns. Policy is the visible part — negotiations, press conferences and big questions. Administration is less glamorous and more fundamental.

“As speaker of the House, I am the CEO, if you will, for the Oklahoma House of Representatives,” he says. “We are responsible for ensuring taxpayer dollars are well spent.”

The third part is recruiting and supporting candidates. But some of the work is invisible, like raising a family in the middle of public life.

“My wife and I jointly made the decision for me to run for office,” he says. “But my kids didn’t make that decision.”

That reality shapes his boundaries. Long drives for short meetings are part of the job, yet time remains finite. He greatly enjoys celebrating his two daughters and eagerly anticipates their third child arriving this spring.

He still remembers an FFA leadership speaker who framed it perfectly for him: “Every time you say yes to one thing, you’re saying no to something else.” He keeps that phrase at the forefront of his mind as a visual of an hourglass with the sand falling.

“I just want to make the most use of my time,” he says. “Ultimately, my most important job is being a dad.”

His world is policy briefings, but he still enjoys football Saturdays and history detours.

“I’m a big history nerd,” he confesses. On trips, he is the one narrating something that happened in 1872 while his wife would prefer just eating the ice cream. “But I’ve got to tell the history of that particular ice cream shop,” he jokes.

He seeks these places, not because it’s convenient, but because he loves a good story. Stories also shape how he sees Oklahoma.

“What makes Oklahoma great? The people,” he says without hesitation.

He’s heard every stereotype, even gets asked whether life here looks like an episode of the show, “Tulsa King.” He smiles at that. But anyone who actually comes, he insists, falls in love with the state because of its kindness.

“People here are so nice, it’s hard to not like them,” he says.

Rural roots and a changing state

He carries that same affection for rural Oklahoma. He sees growth coming and doesn’t flinch from its complexity. A legislator from Broken Arrow and one from Broken Bow can vote differently and both be right, he says, because they’re each representing thousands of people with very different realities.

Consensus-building is the work. Protecting rural voices while welcoming growth is the tension. Relationships, he believes, are the key, especially as Oklahoma shifts toward more suburban and urban populations.

That belief is why he lights up when he talks about rural electrification and broadband.

“I love the story of rural electrification,” he says.

He imagines two families a mile apart whose lives were completely different simply because one had a washing machine and one didn’t.

“That item alone totally changes somebody’s life,” he says.

Broadband, he argues, is today’s frontier — opportunity divided by access.

“I am much more confident in the future of rural Oklahoma because of that access,” he says.

When he looks to the future, he can sum it up in one word.

“I issued a one-word challenge to members of the House, which is the word ‘better,’” he says.

For him, the concept runs counter to the campaign-trail impulse to promise sweeping fixes.

“Oftentimes in politics, people like to run on, ‘I’m going to fix everything.’ Well, ultimately there aren’t a lot of things we can fix 100%. You can’t fix every pothole in every road across the state. You can’t fix every problem in education or human services. But what you can do is try to make it better.”

The idea connects back to a lesson his dad taught him.

“I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but my dad was,” Hilbert says with a small laugh. “He always taught me to leave the campsite better than you found it.”

That simple rule has become his measure of success in one of the highest-pressure roles in Oklahoma government.

“My hope is that when people reflect on my time as speaker, they’ll say, ‘Hilbert made things better.’ I hope I will have made the institution of the House better, made the state better, made rural Oklahoma better, made education better, made our infrastructure system better,” he says. “That’s really what I want to be able to hang my hat on when I’m done.”