His gift for gab paid off handsomely for Charly Cummings.
Cummings, 32, Yates Center, won the Livestock Marketing Association’s 2011 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship.
In his third year of competing, Cummings beat out 32 other contestants from across the United States and one international title holder.
Prior to this year, Cummings took third place overall in the 2010 competition. He was named the Audrey K. Banks “Rookie of the Year” in his inaugural competition in 2008.
“I was really pleased with how I scored,” Cummings told the Register in a telephone interview. “I thought I had a shot.”
The four-day competition consisted of the 32 quarterfinalists “selling” groups of cattle in a mock sale, and an interview process featuring three industry-related issues, such as explaining the importance of agriculture to urban youth.
The interview score was worth 25 percent of each competitor’s final grade.
The top 10 semifinalists were directed to sell another set of cattle.
Auctioneers were rated on the clarity of their chant, how quickly the auction proceeded, his ability to catch bids, and the ultimate question for each judge: “Would you hire this auctioneer?”
“I got lucky,” Cummings said, in that he was the seventh of the 10 semifinalists to coordinate his final sale.
“I like to be right in the middle on sales like those,” he said.
EARNING THE WLAC crown, Cummings received $5,000, a champion’s sculpture, a hand-tooled leather briefcase, a custom belt buckle and his use of a 2011 Ford F-150 pickup for one year.
He also will appear at several LMA sales across the country.
“I got home and had 14 messages” from markets requesting appearances, Cummings said.
Cummings, one of the managing partners of Southeast Kansas Stockyards LLC in Gas, got his start fresh out of high school while visiting his uncle Mike Audiss’ auction in Chanute in 1994.
Cummings found his fast talking ability fit in well with the cattle buyers.
He later went to work selling calves in Eureka and then was invited to help with other sales across southeast Kansas.
