Sales records tumbled at the National Western Stock Show’s Junior Livestock Auction Friday night in Denver.
The top eight animals at the 2017 Auction of the Junior Livestock Champions set an all-time record of $442,500, according to stock show officials.
The Grand Champion Steer, Fu, sold for a record $135,000 to Kent Stevinson, president of Stevinson Automotive Inc., in front of a boisterous, standing-room-only crowd.
“The auction started with a bang when the Reserve Grand Champion Lamb sold for $34,000, exceeding last year’s bid by $6,000,” according to a National Western media release. “The Reserve Grand Champion Steer sold for a record-breaking $107,500, exceeding last year’s bid of $70,000.”
Auction funds support junior exhibitors college educations as they plan for agricultural futures. A portion of the proceeds support the National Western Scholarship Trust, which funds scholarships in agriculture and rural medicine at colleges throughout Colorado and Wyoming. This year 80 students received funds to aid their education.
The top eight champion animals were shown by an all-girl crew.
Fu was raised in Stratford, Texas, by 12-year-old Lillie Skiles. The champion steer and Skiles were both at The Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver earlier on Friday.
Skiles said her regimen for raising the 1,379 pound bull was simple: “I washed him and fed him every day.”
Also at the Brown on Friday was the Reserve Grand Champion steer — BFF, an acronym for “best friend forever”— raised by 15-year-old Mikala Grady of Grandview, Texas. BFF set an all-time record selling for $107,500.
