PUEBLO — The whole posse didn’t show up Tuesday at the Junior Livestock Auction at the Colorado State Fair, but a passel of Denver movers and shakers came with a fistful of dollars.
For 19 years, the Rustlers have put down some tall dollars at the auction for steers, goats and lambs raised by youngsters.
Most of the kids squirrel away the money for college.
“There’s a little something going on in Denver this year,” chief Rustler Tim Schultz of the Boettcher Foundation told the crowd, referring to the Democratic National Convention.
“Not a lot of people came, but we brought a lot of money,” Schultz said of the prominent business leaders and politicians togged out in white cowboy shirts with black and red embroidery.
“These kids work so hard year-round,” said Steve Schuck of the rival bidding group from Colorado Springs, the Pikes Peak Posse.
The Rustlers weren’t a bit shy about spending the dough, though they passed on buying the grand champion beef.
Last year, the Rustlers doled out $52,000 for the champ; this year, American Furniture Warehouse president Jake Jabs, a Rustler member, bid up to $45,000 but Pueblo businessman Sam Brown topped him at $50,000.
A perennial auction heavyweight, Brown said he plans to butcher the animal shown by Tyler Camblin of Holyoke and distribute the meat to family members.
Denver Post publisher William Dean Singleton, who stayed in Denver, pooled cash with Jabs and Larry Mizel, chairman of MDC Holdings Inc., to corral the grand champion lamb shown by Darren McLaughlin of Craig for $13,500.
The Rustlers also bought the grand champion goat for $2,500. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Rustler member, bought a reserve champion goat for $1,100.
For the first time, rabbits and chickens were on the auction block. Hannah Vickland, 13, of Longmont sold her pen of three grand champion rabbits for $750 to Colorado Counties Inc.
Ann Schrader: 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
