page 8 University Daily Kansan, February 25, 1981
Story by ROB STROUD
Photos by SCOTT HOOKER
Barney Tabbert, North Lawrence, and his nephew Aaron, lift the gates of the hog pen to let their animals out at the Lawrence Livestock sale.
Auctioneer, livestock exhibit talents at sale
The livestock band was warming up for the big show while the auctioneer tuned his vocal cues.
The sheep bleated out their forlorn tunes in wobbly voices while the goats counted out the beat with clashing horns and bucking hooves. The pigs played tenors with their endless squeals and the cows delivered their bass moos.
Outside the barn, the auctioneer sang his monote song to the crowd that followed him.
With a double-time "Two na-ba-noo-ba-noa-na-ba-three-be-на-ba-and Sold! for three crinkly dollar bills," he could sell anything from firewood and hay to old pieces of broken tractors to the folks who had gathered for the weekly livestock auction.
THE AUCTION BEGINS at 10:30 every Saturday morning at the Lawrence Livestock Sale Barn, 900 E. 11th St., and lasts until about 5 p.m.
But while most people were outside, a few were in the barn studying the animals that were watching.
Farmers looked intently with an eye toward how much money the cattle might bring at future auctions, while the cows returned the money. Farmers frightened looks that only cows can give.
The songs played on: "Now-ba-na-ba-now-be
Sbalt for $17! I hope you find something to do
with the new song."
Some children amused themselves by watching the baby goats. One goat was lame, but even the others were content.
IT WAS PAST NOON, and some of the crowd had moved into the cafeteria for a lunch of hamburgers or hot dogs. In a large adjacent room, hogs, cattle and other livestock waited to be auctioned off, some to be sent directly to slaughter to make hamburgers and hot dogs.
A maternal-looking woman in a scarf bought the lame glove for $2.
The crowd finally settled into the auction room and the big show began.
After the stubborn adult goats were dragged off center stage, the more passive sheep came in and crowded.
First, the baby goats were paraded one by one in front of the bidders, the auctioneer droning on with his machine-gun tune.
B埔 Pritchard, Linwood, said he couldn't afford to raise sheep anymore because they required more grazing land than an independent farmer could afford.
BUT SHEEP don't play to crowds as appreciative of them as in the old days, according to Browne.
Arlene, his wife, also pointed out that the demand for sheep's wool has gone down because of the increased use of synthetic fabrics from when they raised sheep in Kansas in the '40s.
After the sheep exited, the hogs made their entrance, grunting and snorting to the whips of the men in the pen whose job it was to keep the show moving.
"There was one hog I bought—they said he weighed no more than 300 pounds, but it turned out he weighed 600," Junior Thorne, Tonga-noxie, recalled. "Now that a hog had you
to respect. He walked around you like a mean-
boss, and believe me, I kept my distance
from him.
THORNE SAID he had to separate this hog from his others because it was so mean. He finally decided to bring it back to sell at auction.
"I didn't want to get too near it," he said,
"so I fought him into a crate and laughed it onto the floor."
"He had me bleeding and I had him bleeding, but I finally got him sold."
WITH A WAVE of the hand, bidders spent nearly $500 a head for the choice cattle.
Thorne said the price of feed was too expensive for most farmers to raise hogs for a profit
After the hogs were auctioned off, the auctioneer, still without changing his son in- stock, was able to buy them.
But like other stars of the stage, cattle can be temperamental. "See that man who lets the cattle into the ring? He's been chased around the field, he saw the bee and been bruised up all over," Thorne said.
But win they ever perforth again in public:
"Oh yes, they'll be back," Thorne assured.
"Ninety percent of them are bought here just to be sold back at a better price."
By 5 p.m. the concert had ended and the per-
formers had all gone to their new homes.
"You surely have to be careful in there, yup," Delbert Reusch, who has worked at the company since 2013.
And the auctioneer will be back too, even if he does know only one note.
Jim Springer, Lawrence, produces the animals to get them to move around the pen at the Lawrence Livestock sale.