To a city-person’s ears, an auctioneer’s holler is an unending string of gibberish. But to livestock buyers and sellers, it’s a soliloquy of promise.

Legendary Colorado auctioneer John Korrey, who just completed his 20th year pitching the junior market champions at the National Western Stock Show, gave Denver Gazette readers the key to interpreting an auctioneer’s song.

The secret hides in filtering out what Korrey calls “filler words.”

For example, “One dollar bid now. One dollar bid now two. Two dollar bid now three” has a certain rhythm padded by extra nonsense words like “deer” that Korrey relies on to keep the string of bidding going. “One dollar like a deer now two,” for instance. He explained that the numbers have to be clear, but the filler words are inserted for timing.

Timing is everything

An auctioneer’s kryptonite is running those words together too quickly, often a rookie mistake that ends up with buyers scratching their noggins.

“There’s nothing worse than walking away from one of your sales and someone says they can’t understand you,” Korrey said. “It’s like a knife to the heart.”

The auctioneer is a huge part of whether a livestock sale is successful. One has to know the value of the animal and what people are willing to pay, Korrey explained.

To prepare for Friday night’s junior show, he visited with the buyers, and studied where the kids and their animals came from in order to get a feel for what he was selling.

An excellent year

The evening was a success for the youngsters who brought their lambs, hogs, cattle and goats for the final sale.

Nearly 100 animals up for the Auction of Junior Livestock Champions at the 2024 National Western Stock Show Friday, hauled in a total of $1,375,00. It was the second-best year in the National Western’s history.

Of that, $548,000 was made across the top eight champion animals, shy of the record sale amount of $585,000 from 2023.

The Grand Champion Steer, shown by 13-year-old Croix Reimann of South Dakota, sold for $185,000 to Ames Construction Co. The record holder was a steer sold last year for $200,000.

“Rightly it’s a national show, but having more local kids from Colorado may have brought in more money,” said Korrey.

The auction is the final marketplace for ribbon-winning steers, lambs, hogs and goats that were raised by junior exhibitors, 4-H and FFA youth ranging in age from 9 to 18 years old. The goal of the auction of Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion animals is to encourage today’s youth to seek a future in agriculture and to further their education.

Of the thousands of junior market animals that compete at the National Western Stock Show each year, only 98 qualify for the Auction of Junior Livestock Champions. A majority of the winning bid price goes directly to the junior exhibitor and a portion of each bid price, 10%, is donated to support the National Western Scholarship Trust.

Ashley Fischietto, Scholarship Events Manager for the NWSS, said the junior auction is “one of our premiere events.”

From Germany to Dubai

Korrey, has traveled the world from Germany to Dubai selling everything from alpacas to farm equipment, but he is always ecstatic to return home to the Iliff, Colorado ranch property where he was born 71 years ago.

His interest in auctioneering was piqued in grade school at the age of 10, inspired by local livestock sales he’d take in with his father. Korrey’s first auction was a local lumber yard sale, which he did for free at the age of 17.

It’s a job that anyone can try, but auctioneering takes months of training.

There are speciality schools for it, which teach the business of the trade and starts students off with tongue-twisters like:“A big brown bug bit a big brown bear.”

Like knee-bends for a professional athlete, tongue twisters are warm-ups for the mouth.

“The b’s get your tongue rolling with a little rhythm,” he said.

Believe it or not, Korrey admits he’s a bashful guy who loses inhibitions as soon as the microphone switches on.

“I’ve sold equipment for people who were retiring or who were forced by the bank to sell off,” he said. In the end, it’s all about making a difference in one person’s life during the show. “If I can do that, I’m satisfied.”