Bailey Core stands to turn a tidy profit tonight at the National Western Stock Show’s Auction of Junior Livestock Champions.
The 16-year-old from Pleasantville, Iowa, recounted the $4,000 price she paid her best friend last August for her 1,200-pound heifer named Lidy.
When the first heifer to ever be named reserve grand champion at the 104-year-old National Western goes on the block, Bailey could earn 20 times that price and pay for her college education in one night.
Her best friend, Amanda Cook, got the first phone call with the news that her former steer had won a historic title.
“I just won reserve champion,” Bailey said she told Amanda through tears. “She was so excited.”
She and 13-year-old Sydney Schnoor of Chowchilla, Calif., owner of the grand champion steer, and their prized cattle greeted scores of well-wishers this afternoon beneath the elegant stained-glass skylight of the Brown Palace’s eight-story atrium.
Thousands of 4-H and Future Farmers of America members ages 9 to 19 from the West and Midwest compete at the National Western.
Only the very best cattle, lambs, hogs and goats advance to tonight’s big-money auction, which begins at 6:30 in the Beef Palace Auction Arena.
The auction is the ultimate destination, and the Brown Palace is a dream, said Sydney and Bailey.
“This a huge thing,” said Sydney, who raised the 1,300-pound steer called Howdy. “This has been my dream.”
Schnoor’s two older sisters had raised past livestock show winners on the family’s central California ranch, where their father grows tomatoes and almonds. Schnoor said it was a deep honor to join them as a champion.
“For me to come to the National Western and do this is amazing for my family,” she said. “I’ve seen my sisters win so much, and I look up to them so much, that I can’t say how much this means to me.”
Both winners said they would save their auction profits for their college education.
Each year Colorado civic leaders pay top dollar for the champions.
In 2009, prices were depressed, owing to the bad economy, auction officials said. Last year’s grand champion sold for $50,000, after the 2008 winner fetched 110,500.
Last year, the grand champion lamb went for $25,000. The champion hog sold for $16,000, and the top goat brought $11,500.
Ten percent of each auction price goes into the National Western Scholarship Trust, which provides financial aid to college students studying agricultural and animal sciences, or fields to provide service to rural communities. This year, the trust awarded 71 scholarships worth between $2,500 and $6,000.
Cattle at the castle has been a tradition since nearly the beginning of the show. In 1919, the Brown Palace Hotel paid a then-record price of 50 cents a pound for the grand champion steer, according to the show’s official history.
The storied downtown hotel embraces the tradition and spectacle, noting such appearances as that in January 1958, when movie star cowboy Monte Montana rode into the lobby on his horse, Rex, and up the grand staircase for the Rodeo Cowboys Association meeting.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
