A barn full of buyers made Saturday’s Junior Livestock Sale one for the books. The record-setting sale brought in $414,528 for local FFA and 4-H youth.

“I’m just still kind of floored by it actually,” said Joe Bridges, chairman of the Junior Livestock Sale committee. “I think this is the first time that we’ve gotten over $400,000 … it really was a great sale.”

A total of 240 youth sold their livestock at Saturday’s sale, which drew first-time bidders in addition to longtime supporters.

Bridges described the 2019 sale as one of the most consistent he’s ever seen. Most sales see some lulls.

“Usually in the middle, it kind of lulls out just a little bit, and you’ve got to push hard to try to keep some prices up,” Bridges said.

But that wasn’t the case Saturday.

“There were some buyers that kind of made up their mind, ‘We’re not going to let it go there,’” Bridges said. “And we just never dipped off; we never had that lull.”

While there were some high-end sales — including a goat that sold for $75 per pound — Bridges said the main reason he thinks the sale topped $400,000 was the consistency throughout the whole sale, for every kid.

“Just great numbers, top to bottom, beginning to end,” Bridges said.

Saturday’s sale featured 49 goats, 24 steers, 103 hogs, 51 lambs and 13 rabbits.

A fun bid-off started when Rieta Clark stepped into the ring with her goat.

Looking to support his granddaughter, Dean Pettyjohn began bidding on Clark’s animal, but he found himself in a fierce bidding war against another bidder, who he couldn’t see from his spot in the front.

Only later did Pettyjohn learn that he and his wife Stephanie were being bid up by another set of Rieta Clark’s grandparents, Jake and Kay Clark.

“It was one grandpa [Pettyjohn] at one end of the building, and the other grandpa [Clark] snuck in at the other end, and chased each other up at it,” Bridges said.

The Pettyjohns ended up with the winning bid of $75 per pound, adding to the excitement of Saturday’s record-setting sale. At 64 pounds, the goat came in at $4,800.

“That’s definitely the highest that we’ve ever sold a goat for,” Bridges said.

The average price of goats was $11.18 per pound, which was above previous years. While the $75/pound skews the numbers, even without that sale, goat prices were still above average, Bridges said.

Saturday’s sale saw higher averages for steers, lambs and hogs as well (see below).

“All four of the large animals were at higher averages,” Bridges said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that.”

He said sometimes all four have increased by a couple cents, but “we were double digit cents on all of them that moved.”

Going into the sale, organizers were cautiously optimistic.

“We knew some of our main buyers had indicated that their budgets weren’t really quite what they used to be, and so that always makes you nervous, especially when you know you’ve got a large sale coming,” Bridges said.

But Saturday’s sale surpassed expectations.

“We had a tremendous amount of new buyers last year, and a good portion of them came back, and we just had a lot of new buyers again this year,” Bridges said.

FFA and 4-H youth have “done a really great job” inviting people to the sale, he said.

“The kids put forth the effort and the extra time … to go out and invite buyers and educate them on what it is that they’re doing and how this project in agriculture has helped influence their lives,” Bridges said.

As always, longtime buyers showed their support.

“We have the huge volume buyers, and that group is just a solid core group — they’re there year in, year out,” Bridges said.

After 17 years of doing the Junior Livestock Sale, Bridges said he’s still amazed to watch the buyers who hang in there, no matter how long the sale goes or how hot it gets.

“The dedication that those buyers have, sticking it out and sitting on those tough, hard bleachers for five hours-plus to get all the way to the end to make sure every kid has a chance and every kid is being taken care of — that’s just phenomenal,” Bridges said.

2019 Junior Livestock Sale

Goats

High seller: Rieta Clark at $75/pound

Buyer: Dean and Stephanie Pettyjohn

Average: $11.18/pound

Hogs

High seller: Dalton Woodward at $16/pound

Buyer: Rocky Mountain Line Systems (new buyer)

Average: $6.48/pound

Lambs

High seller: Patrick Haney at $13/pound

Buyer: Imagination Station (new buyer)

Average: $9.02/pound

Steers

High seller: Hunter Koster at $7/pound

Buyer: Fremont Motor - Cody

Average: $4.70/pound

Rabbits

High seller: Kaitlin Diver at $650

Buyer: Whittle, Hamilton and Associates

Average: $457.69