Had Charly Cummings and Kyle Shobe been a bit more ornery, keeping up with their conversation could have been darned near impossible.
But aside from when they were on duty — serving as auctioneers as more than 800 head of cattle were sold Friday at the Allen County Livestock Auction — their exchanges outside the sale barn were of the more leisurely sort.
“The best part about days like this is catching up with friends,” said Shobe, in Allen County to assist with the sale as part of his duties as the reigning World Livestock Auctioneering champion.
Shobe, a native of Lewistown, Mont., took home the top prize at the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship in June in Oklahoma City. Cummings, who grew up in Yates Center and is now the owner of the Allen County sale barn, was the runner-up.
During the auction, the pair traded off occasionally, although Shobe handled the bulk of the duties as part of his nationwide tour of various Livestock Marketers Association sale barns as the world champion.
“I’m putting him to work,” Cummings said with a chuckle.
Shobe wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“It’s a privilege to be able to travel and represent the Livestock Marketing Assocation,” he said. “And I know a lot of the faces here.”
Shobe was at a similar sale in Coffeyville Thursday and plans to make “20 or 30” other sales across the country before handing over the crown to a new winner in 2011. World champions are ineligible from competing in future LMA contests.
One of the odds-on favorites to win in 2011 might certainly be Cummings, who took second place overall in his third go-around at the world championships. Like Shobe, Cummings was a former rookie of the year for LMA, winning that designation in 2008. Shobe won it in 2009.
And like Shobe, Cummings said competitions like the one in Oklahoma City were more beneficial from the relationships built and not the trophies won.
“Some of your best friends will come from an event like that,” Cummings said.
The sale drew a crowd of sellers from a 70-mile radius surrounding the Iola area, and buyers from as far away as Missouri and Nebraska.
THE AUCTIONEERING competition features contestants selling off the same herd of cattle. Competitors are rated on clarity, the quality of the auctioneer’s voice, whether the sale proceeds expeditiously and whether the beef fetches a fair market price.
The market price, quite obviously, is critical in a number of ways, from ensuring farmers are adequately compensated for their efforts while keeping food prices low for the consumers.
“That’s the biggest key: getting the true market price,” Cummings said.
In addition to assisting with sales, Shobe also is eager to tout livestock auctions and their critical roles in the market place.
“These places are blessed to have such tremendous support,” Shobe said. “Getting to do this was something I’d dreamed about for years.”
Shobe, like Cummings, owns his own livestock sale arena in Lewistown. He also is the lead singer of his own country western band, Kyle Shobe and the Walk ’Em Boys and serves as a rodeo announcer.
Friday’s sale also featured a few auctioneers in the audience, including Lanny Ireland of Fort Scott, the 1996 World Livestock Auctioneering champion.
