The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce offered the top bid of $50,000 for this year’s Grand Champion Steer at the Junior Livestock Champions auction tonight.
Ricky Bobby, owned by Brock May of Mineral Point, Wis., weighed in at 1,315 pounds.
The bid for champion steer passed $100,000 twice during the boom times last decade, but tonight’s bid was comparable to last year’s. The winning bid in 2008 was $110,500.
The reserve grand champion was Black Betty, which weighed 1,317 pounds and sold for $33,000. Its owner was Kaiti Robinson of Conroe, Texas.
Of the thousands of junior market animals entered at the National Western Stock Show each year, only 90 of them are auctioned at the Junior Livestock Champions auction in the Beef Palace Auction Arena.
The auction is the final market place for the ribbon-winning steers, lambs, hogs and goats that were raised by junior exhibitors, 4-H and FFA youngsters ranging in age from nine to 18.
Zane Ward, 14, of Leoti, Kan., who won the “Catch a Calf” competition, named his steer “Sid” after the clumsy sloth in the movie “Ice Age” because at first his calf was a “moron.”
The black and white Hereford/Angus cross consumed 25 pounds of oats and up to five pounds of hay a day and by the auction weighed in at 1,329 pounds. He sold for $7,250.
“I brushed him every chance I got,” Ward said. “I’m amazingly happy. It was very rewarding.”
The Grand Champion Hog “Spanky” owned by 18-year-old Drey Marceaux of Kaplan, La., brought $10,000, the Grand Champion Goat brought $11,000, and the Grand Champion Lamb “Kent” owned by 17-year-old Justin Willoughby of Sheridan, Iowa, brought $15,000.
“It ran flawlessly,” Stock Show CEO Paul Andrews said of the auction.
Proceeds of the auction go to the winners, a scholarship fund and for agriculture and rural medicine endeavors.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
