Two unusual bid rounds at PEF market sale

Two unusual bid rounds were logged at this year's junior market sale at the Palouse Empire Fair. One was an impromptu call for pledges to help fund a 4Her who lost his dad to cancer last May and the other was bid by junior stock entrants from the 1960 sale who decided to get back together and buy one animal on this year's sale bill.

Jerry Hennigar, organizer of the reunion pool bid, said he had planned to make the joint purchase next year on the 60th anniversary of when the participants were in the sale ring, but he decided to do it this year to comply with the 2019 fair's "Baling in the Generations Together" theme.

Besides being a participant, Hennigar is a member of the sale committee, and he also had a part in the pledge bid rounds which raised funds for one of the junior marketers on the sheep market bill.

Hennigar said he was approached by Commissioner Michael Largent who advised him the sale organizers had to "do something" to support the family of Mockonema 4H member Erik Christensen of Colfax. He was on the sale bill with his first lamb, a 141-pounder.

Hennigar, who has informal contact with a group of supporters, then put in a top bid of $7.50 per pound for the lamb and then offered to put the animal back up for a second round sale.

Auctioneer Butch Booker put the resale offer aside and took a more direct route. Booker issued a call to see who in the crowd would donate $500 to a pool to help the youth.

The bid cards began to go up in response, and Booker began to read the cards to the sale clerk. One by one bid card numbers went down on the sale ledger for contribution to the sale price.

A video after the round for $500 shows auctioneer Booker dropping his head after he finished the $500 call and quietly muttering "wow" into the microphone.

He then issued a call for pledges of $250 and another round of bid cards were flashed with Booker reading off identities of the bidders. After the call for the $250 round, Booker noted the pledges had hit $15,500 and he then called for a round of $100 pledges with more bid cards going up and the number booked on the sale ledger.

Hennigar said he was amazed about how his initial impromptu response to the "do something" request on behalf of the boy turned out.

"This is the area that we live in. This is what people should do when we have a problem," Hennigar noted.

Young Erik was supported in the sale ring by Largent who helped him raise the lamb for the sale. They were joined in the ring by Erik's mother, Lisa, and his sister, Annika, a CHS freshman.

Largent said proceeds from the pledge rounds are expected to exceed $20,000.

"It's an outstanding statement about this community," Lisa Christensen said. She noted she and her late husband, Kirk, opted to move to this area from Seattle because they wanted to raise the children in a rural area.

She believed the response for her family could well have been for any other family in the same situation.

Hennigar's reunion bid was keyed by a 1960 sale ledger which had Hennigar on the list. The sale list had been kept by Hennigar's mother.

The 1960 sale list included 26 entrants. Jon Ochs of LaCrosse had the grand champion that year, and he received a top bid of 50 cents per pound.

Hennigar decided to contact the marketers from 1960 and ask them to fund a pool to buy an animal in the sheep sale this year.

Twelve of the 26 responded.

They purchased the reserve 4H champion shown by Garin Monson for $16 a pound.

"It's just a way of giving back," Hennigar commented.