Livestock auction still lively, even without live animals

By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

A livestock auction without the livestock being there in person still brought people out to bid high and bid often during the Shawano County Fair on Sept. 4.

Because of the pandemic, fair officials opted to move the annual auction from the Coliseum to the Crawford Center, and instead of the slow process of bringing animals in one by one to be bid, fair officials hauled in a pair of big-screen televisions that would show a photo of the animal and its owner as said owner was also there in person.

Not seeing the animal in person didn’t stop business owners and others from trying to one-up each other as bids went higher and higher and some of the children watched, mystified.

Cole Matsche stood in front of hundreds of people as the bidding went all the way up to $29 per pound for his pig, even though the market price as of Friday was 33 cents per pound. However, the winning bidder decided to put the money he bid into the fair’s scholarship fund, and Matsche wound up getting about $800 from the final bid of $3.25 per pound.

“I thought I was going to get $1,000,” Matsche said, saying he wasn’t sure why the bidding went so high.

For Allie Cerveny, of Gresham, it was her first year participating in the auction, although her sisters have previously participated. Her pig sold for $4.25 per pound, making the 200-pound animal worth $900 to her.

“It feels a little different, because you don’t get to show them,” Cerveny said. “I don’t get to walk around with the pig and do this.”

McKenzie Van Haren, whose beef cow was named grand champion crossbred beef carcass, received $5.20 per pound for her cow. This year was her sixth participating in the auction.

“It was very different,” Van Haren said of the new format. “It just didn’t feel right.”

Van Haren noted that she usually is focused on controlling her animal during the auction, but she saw a lot of happy faces in the crowd this year.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com