Livestock Auctioneer Talks Bull Sales, Ranching Storylines
Steve Hallstrom
Special to The Farmer
Editors Note: Last week I had a chance to stop out at Pete and Vawnita Best’s annual bull sale on their ranch southeast of Watford City. As a farm kid who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Central Minnesota, I enjoy these events for the info you learn and the traditions they honor. The auctioneer was an energetic and engaging professional out of Montana named Kyle Shobe. I visited with him, during my radio show on AM 1090 The Flag, a couple days after the sale to learn more about the work he does, and the role that auctions play in our farm economy
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Steve: I was looking at your schedule for your auction services and you are all over the place doing a sale just about every day. What’s this like for you doing what you do and having to be different places just about every day?
Kyle: Well, this is a dream come true for me. I grew up in the auction business. My dad actually grew up around New Town, North Dakota and moved out to the central part of Montana back in the early 70s. And so I grew up with him being an auctioneer and I got to be an auctioneer when I was a kid and kind of grew up in our business where we sold literally everything from livestock to pots and pans and tractors and real estate. But to get to do this now and travel the country seeing a lot of my friends who are my clients too is special. But I just become such good friends with so many of these folks that are in the seed stock, purebred business selling cattle. And it really is a great time of year to be out and around and seeing a lot of folks that I enjoy seeing sometimes no more than once a year. But it’s a great reunion.
Steve: Tell me a little bit about the role that these purebred breeders play in the industry. I mean, without people like the Bests, and the other people that you do this work for, we wouldn’t have steak on the plate. We wouldn’t have the industry that we have and the economy that springs up around that.
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