Mickey Gates

Michael Wayne Gates, known as Mickey Gates (born c. 1960), is a businessman from Hot Springs, Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for District 22, which encompasses Garland and Saline counties in the west central portion of his state.

A native of Perryton in the northernmost Texas Panhandle, Gates was reared in Spearman in nearby Hansford County, Texas, but moved to Borger to finish the last three years of his public education at Borger High School.

From 1994 to 2014, Gates was an elected member of the Garland County Quorum Court, the equivalent of county commission in most other states. Gates was a founding board member for the Change Point Pregnancy Care Center in Hot Springs. He has been chairman of the Garland County Republican Party and the Garland County Young Republicans. He and his wife, the former Susan Jeanette Whitten (born c. 1962), have two children, Elizabeth Gates and Benjamin Gates.

In 2014, he was elected to succeed Bruce Westerman, a fellow Republican who was instead elected to the United States House of Representatives for Arkansas's 4th congressional district. In the Republican primary election, Gates defeated Donald Laymon, 2,690 to 1,869. He was then unopposed in the November 4 general election in a heavily Republican year in Arkansas. In his first term in office, Gates serves on the House committees of (1) Aging, Children, and Youth Legislative and Military Affairs and (2) Public Transportation.

Gates is president of The Stonebridge Collection, a company in Hot Springs, which is the nation's largest producer of custom logo pocket knives. Stonebridge ships knives around the country and to seven other countries. The firm produces 30,000 to 50,000 knives each month.