Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 12, 1995 TAG: 9511130008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Long
Some rest their feet on the chairs in front of them. Others devour hot dogs and sodas from the snack bar. A few people pass the time by spitting tobacco juice into soda bottles or on the floor.
There are no pretensions at the Pulaski Livestock Market, no rules that prohibit eating and drinking and smoking. The cattle auctions that take place here every Wednesday and Friday night are business, with a touch of performance.
On this particular Wednesday, about 100 farmers, professional cattle buyers and onlookers are waiting to examine, and maybe buy, the 869 yearlings of all breeds that are on sale. This late October sale is the last yearling auction of the year.
Their snacks and smokes are abandoned momentarily once the first group is driven from its pen onto the pitlike ring in the center of the sale room.
The Wednesday night cattle sale has begun.
"Sixty-eight dollars, now 65, 63," the auctioneer drawls out in one quick breath, aiming for a price at which bidding will begin.
In the sales ring, a man in a cowboy hat taps the rumps of nine black Angus crossbreeds with what looks like a large, red fly swatter to keep them in view.
"No. Thirty, number 30 got 'em," the auctioneer announces seconds later, calling out the buyer by number rather than name.
Cattle auctions at the Pulaski Livestock Market are run every fall, from September to December, and every spring, from March to April. There is one sale in mid-July. The special sales, such as this auction where only yearlings are sold, are held on Wednesday evenings. All types of cattle are sold on Fridays.
The market also deals in dairy cows, lambs, sheep and other livestock throughout the year.
By the end of this year, 22,000 calves and yearlings will have been sold to about 500 farmers throughout Virginia and the nation. The market in this small Pulaski County crossroads rings up about $13 million in sales each year.
"It's just a way of life," says Bonnie Boothe, one of the auction managers.
Boothe, a small woman with neat, graying hair and hands adorned with rings and pink nail polish, has been working at the market for 32 years. Her late husband, Grover, helped build the market in October 1953 with another farmer named Chick Richardson.
Livestock market cooperatives such as the one in Pulaski County were formed to help farmers get the best price for their animals and to ensure quality, said Richard White of the Pulaski County Cooperative Extension Service. Other Southwest Virginia livestock markets are in Narrows, Wytheville and Christiansburg.
The Pulaski Livestock Market is a corporation owned by farmers who have bought shares in it. Pulaski Auction Inc., which Boothe runs with Joe Meek, leases the market from the cooperative to run the sales. Meek's father, Roy, was a manager at the market from the 1960s until he died four years ago.
The market gets 2 percent of the gross sales.
"It's something that you like and something you look forward to," Boothe said of the sales. "You meet so many farm people."
The market is actually a large, two-level, wooden barn with mazes of wooden pens for the animals. The market office and sales room, which looks like a small coliseum, are above the pens, where the bawling of cows can be overpowering on sale days.
A poster hangs on a wall adjacent to the office with a picture of a steak, a baked potato and vegetables. The words "Steak Satisfies" are transposed above the heaping plate. Well-worn and dusty, the poster looks almost as old as the market itself.
The livestock market was built along Virginia 100, next to the train tracks that cut through Dublin, because cattle were shipped by rail at the time rather than by tractor-trailer.
Some of the older farmers, such as Maynard Newberry of Bland County, say the work was harder and the hours longer when they worked at the market years ago.
"I worked here 60 hours without stopping once," Newberry says as he reminisces with a friend.
Putting together a sale does require long hours. On cattle sale days, farmers begin dropping off their cows at 6 a.m., bringing the animals in trailers attached to pickup trucks. The cows are carefully guided from the trucks into a large, wooden pen where they will be categorized.
Odell Hill, a Hillsville cattle farmer, brings a load of year-old steers and heifers for the auction with fellow farmer Mike Goldwasser, vice president of the Dublin Feeder Calf Association, on a recent Wednesday afternoon.
The yearling sale is sponsored by the association, a farmers' cooperative that sponsors 17 such auctions every year. Meek, the manager, said most cattle farmers in Virginia raise the calves and yearlings, then sell them to farmers in Corn Belt states who will fatten them on grain until they are large enough for slaughter.
Hill carefully holds onto the pen's gate so his cows do not escape, which is not unheard of. A few years ago, Hill says, a farmer left the gate on his trailer open and "20 or some of them [were] wandering around town."
Once unloaded, the steers and heifers are graded by size and muscle tone by officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They soon sport a yellow S, M or L [small, medium or large] painted on their sides to indicate their growth potential.
Next come the scales. A sales number is pasted onto the animals with thick, brown glue.
Hill and Goldwasser wait until scale tickets with each calf's grade, weight and number - and space for the calf's sales price - are written up before they leave. The checks will be sent out the morning after the sale. This year, prices are down. Cattle are selling anywhere from $45 to $70 per 100 pounds.
The feeder calves, now graded and numbered, are divided up and put into pens to await auction. As the sunlight wanes, the calves' bawling becomes louder.
"They're just missing their mamas," says Bob Dobyns, a stockholder in the market who attended the yearling sale.
On this night, the auction lasts two hours and is an endless parade of black, brown, white and spotted feeder calves. Richard Shelburn, the auctioneer, wears a headset so he can hear the people who are bidding for the cattle by telephone from out of state.
Some in the audience, such as Kenneth Wenger, travel throughout Virginia to buy cattle this time of year. Wenger, who has been a buyer for 59 years, has come from Akron, Pa., to scout out the best buys.
His routine is to sit close to the sales ring in the center of the row, right across from the auctioneer's booth. For an outsider, it's hard to tell when Wenger sees a group of cattle he wants to buy.
"I don't even look at them," Wenger says of the auctioneers. "I just raise my eyebrows. I don't want anyone else to know I'm bidding."
As the auctioneer continues his melodic patter, the crowd gradually thins as people complete their business and leave the unheated sales room, which grows chillier as the night goes on. A few stay until the bitter end. Wenger leaves halfway through the auction after several unsuccessful bids.
"That's the way it goes," says Wenger, as he zips up his shiny red windbreaker. "One day you get 100, the next day you get none."
by CNB