Auction brings thousands of dollars to local youth
— The drawl of the auctioneer rattled throughout the Dripping Springs Ranch Park arena this past weekend as the Hays County Youth Livestock Show wrapped up with its annual auction.
For the past two weeks, Hays County 4-H and FFA youth have put their best animals and home skills projects forward. On Saturday, the best of the best received bids from local buyers.
“The sale kind of just culminates at the end of the show,” Hays County Livestock Show President Terry Polk explained. “It rewards the kids who did the hard work of getting their animals placed high enough to get into the sale. It’s a ribbon sale, which means we basically just sell the ribbon so the kids can take those animals on to other shows such as Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston.”
The auction is an all day affair, lasting upwards of nine hours.
While there are usually only 275 sale lots, the livestock show board added six additional lots this year in order to get more kids in, bringing the number to 281.
Polk said that many of the youth will use the money they receive toward college or to purchase or maintain their projects for the next year. The show often sees returning top buyers like McCoy’s Building Supply, which has “been at every sale for the past 40 some-odd years.” Other booster clubs around the county also show up and spend money that they raised through different fundraisers.
While it takes a couple of weeks for the sale results to be finalized — buyers have up to two weeks after the show ends to “add on” to the sale — many projects saw huge dollar amounts.
Polk noted that the grand champion steer brought “$15,000 across the block.”
“It seemed to go really well. I mean, not really knowing where the economy’s going to be, most of our buyers came in strong and stayed all the way to the end,” Polk said. “It is awesome that we have a good group of business owners and individuals that come early and pretty much stay to the end. It takes that to get it done.”
Polk said that the youth who participate in the show learn how to be dependable, develop a strong work ethic and even acquire skills like public speaking, whether it’s showing animals or creating home skills projects. Many go on to university or trade schools and do “really well,” he added.
“It just helps them be much better young men and women in the workforce or in life, to make them a contributing member of society,” Polk said. “To me, they're the best kids around. Win, lose or draw, it teaches you life lessons …. You get out of it what you put in.”
More information on the livestock show, including final auction results, which will be posted in a few weeks, can be found at www. hayscountylivestockshow. org.
