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- [00:00]
A
All right, so I'm extremely excited for this unique opportunity due to the fact that I get to represent some amazing people behind this story. Now, this isn't a preview, but kind of it's more so of an introduction of something that's come to light and that is becoming a fruition of everyone's hard work and dedication. This is the Lubbock Lights introduction that the days and plenty others are putting on there at the forefront of April. It happens on the 4th. It'll be exhibited on SC and steer bidder with over 15 consignors and breeders that are going to be bringing 90 plus head that will all be displayed there at Cook's Garage. But before I begin, this is something that also they're collaborating with with the West Texas Steer Sale Weekends, a collaborative marketing effort to promote over 40 show steer breeders and sellers who sell cattle over each spring, all within a 200 mile radius of the Hub City Lubbock. This market consists of both print and digital media to promote its online directory of breeders and sellers, making it easy for buyers to sort sales according to their buying preferences. West Texas Steer Sale Weekends promotes its participants via Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. In two years, the audiences on that platform have grown organically, but at least over a thousand followers on multiple platforms. The online directory is a website also that boosts thousands of visitors during the spring selling season. Once again, West Texas Deer Sail exhibits Lubbock Lights as one of the forefronts of West Texas deer sales and it's a promotional effort that this week's with the online sales being posted a huge watch party for April 4th on Saturday and it'll all be happening at Cook's garage, which is one location. Once again, 15 breeders and over 90 to 100 head both being exhibited on SC and steer bidder platforms. Learn more about West Texas Steer Sale Weekend's initiative when you Visit their website wtxsteers.com While this marketing effort is new, it promotes a 50 plus year tradition of the West Texas region offering elite show steer prospects which prove to be competitive at the state's highest levels. Now what I'd like to do is Katie Philly Rusty, Introduce yourselves. I'd love to dive into this and once again I can't say enough of just how grateful I am.
- [02:26]
B
Okay Weston, well, thanks for the opportunity and we are pretty fired up on taking what's already been established for many years and hopefully making it better and a good buying experience and selling experience for everybody that's going to participate. But I'm Katie Jo Day. I've got my husband Rusty here and Philly Roberts. And I guess if. If anybody's come out to the West Texas Deer Sale weekend, Philly had an idea a couple of years ago to really promote it as a singular sale weekend, kind of collectively, all of us going together and offering a great selection of club calves and a few heifer to families looking to start putting their next set together. And Philly's concept was to create this West Texas steer sail weekend. And I'll let her introduce herself and kind of the reason she thought that an event would benefit everybody out here.
- [03:17]
C
I am Philly Roberts, and I'm a transplant out here in West Texas. My husband and I have been out here four years, but we've been bringing calves down here to sell for coming on 20 years, I guess my family has. And there's a lot of banners that are bred in West Texas, and that is something to be proud of. But also to extend that in a way, we have had shoppers from Mississippi and up north. It's broadened our base of customer and clientele, for sure.
- [03:54]
B
Absolutely. Philly wanted to promote it as West Texas Deer Cell weekend. And I know we're all competitive and we want to win, but I mean, if we don't work together to promote the industry, we've got kiddos. I mean, in this 4H FFA program, we're graduating some every year. Right. So if we don't try to build new families and retain the ones that we have and develop new feeders, then the program doesn't continue to exist. So with that in mind, we work together with Peyton Brown, who's just a phenomenal marketing mind, and started promoting everybody that wanted to join in. And Philly's right. I know we use. We have a live auctions. We use cci, which is fantastic platforms, the best. And we had viewers signed in and buyers registered from Idaho, California, Oklahoma, of course, we had two families drive in from Arizona, and they were there at the live auction and bought three head to haul back to Arizona for their shows. I mean, this has just turned into, I mean, an incredible marketing opportunity and a true destination weekend for people to come. Like I said, put kevs on feed for their next year's projects. The idea for this Lubbock light sale, there's several of us. It's kind of West Texas sale weekend number two. Right. Or part two. And it's usually all online sales or has been the past few years. I know we started ours with Breeders World back when Clint Petzold was with them and then we've moved ours to sc. Of course, steer bidders come onto the scene and they've been an incredible platform for folks to sell to. Also. They do a great job. So with us that usually have these online sales, I had thought, well, what if we get together and it's just so hard for especially when this weekend happens to fall on Easter like it does this year, it's really hard for folks to make all those miles and see everybody's calves. Usually we don't everyone have quite as many to put in this round two as we do in the March sale weekend. So I thought, well, let's just all get together and have a really good offering with a lot more head in one location that it'd be convenient. Which Lubbock is obviously the hub means hub city. So why not let's take them to Lubbock and put them on display and then have our sales on that first week in April like we usually do. So that's where the Lubbock lots concept came into play. But what we'd like to do also is just maybe pay a little bit of homage to this West Texas club kef scene and some of the trailblazers that came ahead of us. And it's not a new thing. West Texas steer sail weekend has been going on since the 80s. Rusty and I grew up showing out here in the late 80s and 90s and there were a few club kef sales with some consigners and then there were some that were standalone. And I'm gonna let Rusty give a little bit of his recollection of the OGs for West Texas steer sale weekend when he was a kid driving around.
- [06:55]
A
Absolutely.
- [06:56]
D
My fond memories are going around with my dad and maybe families that hauled with us that weekend. And there would be a multitude of sales and it always fell. Houston was earlier back then, but it would fall on the weekend opening weekend of spring break and we would cycle through Crosby county sale and then we'd go to Holcomb sale and then we'd go to Newman sale then get up the next morning and go to Stuman sale. Chris Black sale and I'm leaving a couple out. May Peyton Scott had a sale and then you got to come home with whatever you bought. You had all spring break to get em broke and then you went back to school for to finish out, you know, in May. And then by the time that was over, you hit prospect shows in June every weekend and you were off and running. But that was just a timeframe in which it fell and each one of those cells is unique in its own respect. Like I think Newman's was, you know, they would be at their place and as best I know the kids they raised and it'd all be tied up on these grass mounds and you'd go around and appraise each, you know, and see what you like best with your sheet. At Stuman's they'd be in a circular fashion like, like a carousel, like within panels, all but all be tied nose to nose, like six or eight in a lot. And then. But basically what we've got talking about, what's unique over time is all those cells you would go to, those animals be tied up and nowadays like on West Texas, we can walk around, every one of them's loose. And just the evolution of what it takes to evaluate a show steer over a couple decades. And what we find important. There are changes for sure.
- [08:22]
B
Yeah. And after talking to Bruce Lawrence today, he gave us a little bit of history of the Crosby County AI breeders, which as far as I know is the first collective, I guess consignment type sale that there was in West Texas. And I'm going to let Philly introduce it a little bit. And we're super excited to have Bruce as one of our consignors on our Lubbock lot sale.
- [08:45]
A
Absolutely.
- [08:46]
C
It's a multi generation family coming near him and his daughter and son in law and grandkids are all a part of it. And that's, that's the cool thing about so many of these consigners is it's generational amongst us that we're producers. A lot of these guys have been here for so long, but that Crosby County AI breeders, Bruce said, you know, started in the 80s and there's some hard times in the farming going on then. And this was a way of upgrading and doing something different with their stock and 30, 40 head each cell they said. And Stanley Stout would fly in and he said would be a, a big time. There was, I think. What'd he say? No, that went on 27, 30 years, something like that.
- [09:35]
B
Well, I remember when, after Rusty and I got married, we would go over to their cell in Crosby county. And then. Or maybe that was before we got married, but after we were married, I know Brandon and I, we'd graduated from college and Brandon started hosting the sale over there at the Red Barn Apachke. So when Patchke started having that sale at the Red Barn, it was before they changed the name to Main Event. It was still the Crosby County A operators.
- [10:01]
C
So Back to that it started out Andy Vestal was the county agent there and the Texas. What was it back then? Was it Agri life or extension? Basically he was the county agent there and he started this with several producers there right around Crosby county president was Dwayne Cornelius and several other founding fathers of that was Frank Moore, Ronnie Ragland, which would be JD's dad, Mickey Givens, Marvin Heinrich and Lawrence Bender, which if you do some genealogy on that would be Bill Bender's dad and Brett Korn's granddad. There were some, some tough farming years and that was an opportunity for them to market their stock in a different way. Stanley Stout would fly in and they would have a grand time that went on. Bruce Sanderson got involved which then led to Brandon Patchke and that was how that sale ended up evolving. Being from Crosby county at their fairgrounds to at one time Bruce Anderson's roping arena with tents and however many miles of dirt road to get there to right outside of Lubbock at Brandon Patchke's red barn.
- [11:13]
B
Yep. Which is now the main event sale on West Texas Deer sale weekend. Premier live auctions of that weekend and that would have been in the early 2000s.
- [11:21]
A
Wow. That's really interesting for sure. What else I would like to know is what was the idea and vision. Obviously y' all gave us kind of the vision, but more so what initiated the thought process of wanting to do this and recreate something of that nature.
- [11:37]
D
I just think it was going to give us an awesome opportunity to reach young people and their parents that maybe aren't multi generation showers in terms of they could go somewhere and kind of unify all these. And like Katie mentioned, these are smaller number sales this round than the first sale and it wouldn't be the overload that you can get into the first round and just come in a relaxed atmosphere and get to see them all in one location and just have some camaraderie and really get to know your producers or you're buying from and talk about the cattle and make sure it was going to be a good fit for you.
- [12:15]
B
Yeah, I think buyer confidence. We have a blast with that March weekend, the big West Texas steer sale weekend as we've been promoting it. There's so much energy and but also feel like if it's a new kind of more rookie family or they don't have, they're not under the wing of somebody or have an ag teacher or county agent that's taken them around and introduced them, it can be intimid that we can can be. So I guess our purpose for this April round of sales and this Lubbock Light sale is just to really, it be a little more laid back, slower paced, more one on one with the, the sellers, the consignors, the breeders. And I would really like them to know that we're invested in their project. Right. I mean, I just. This is kind of bringing it back grassroots to a more program focused sale. One of the ideas that we have at Cook's Garage, they started hosting a jackpot show in the fall. Last year was their inaugural show. They have a organization called behind the Chutes that provides a lot of scholarships and they do a lot of philanthropical stuff and they're wanting to add more of a livestock component. So when I talked to Shane Melcher about maybe having a sale, he said, heck, yeah, man, that would go in perfectly with how we're trying to transition what we do. And why would we not want to host a livestock sale or a steer sale? Because that's obviously the first step in these kids starting their projects for the next year. So they were super excited to host us, and I think it's a great, great venue. But one of the things that we had talked about doing just to prove that we're really invested in these projects for these, these kids is paying their entry fee to come back and show one of the calves bought in the Lubbock Light sale in that jackpot show in the fall. And if they're purchased in our Lubbock lot sale, then we want to pay their entry fee to come show them back there in October. So it's just, I don't know, just kind of walking the walk of, you know, we're here for you past sale night. And I think everybody that's all the consignors that are in this inaugural sale feel the same way. And we're just excited to promote, promote the program with it. So I'll let Philly kind of introduce our consignors this year and let you know a little bit of about who we have that are going to be on the SC online platform and then the steer bidder platform.
- [14:23]
A
Absolutely. I completely agree with that. And the evolution of it is really neat. So now that you know, y' all have the mindset of, okay, that weekend's extremely overwhelming for some people, how can we make this easier for others, especially in a time and setting after the Texas majors are over? Walk me through that why and how y' all have made it easier and everything in between of being there at Cook's Garage and the layout of everything.
- [14:51]
B
Well, this is the first year, so it's a live and learn process. But we have. I did talk to Dr. Steve Kennedy about his muleshoe imitational sale he used to have and talked to Bruce Lawrence about the CCA IB deal. And just trying to, you know, times have changed. The folks doing it have changed. It's, you know, like Rusty said, we're not. Nobody wants to see them tied up. Who wants to handle a 450 pound baby calf? You just want to see them loose, right? So we're going to display them in runs. Each consigner is going to have one or two runs, depending on how many head that they have in it. And they're going to be out there loose right outside the bus barn area where the main stage is. And they're going to be displayed on turf. So you'll get to analyze every inch of them and we'll have them out there on display starting at 5 o' clock for the public to see every single one of these calves. They are listed on SC online. There's a list of consignors that like to use that auction house and then there's some steer better customers and I'll go over those here in a minute. But they're, they're going to be able to be viewed and then they will be sold online through SC or steer bidder, but they'll be there on display. We've got about 90 head this year. All 90 will be there on locations be able to be viewed starting at 5:00'. Clock. And the restaurant there at Cooks will be open. And we are trying to organize an Easter egg hunt for the little kiddos and just make it a very family friendly, laid back, good shopping experience for everyone, especially being on Easter weekend. Right. It just kind of centers you on the focus of what all this is supp supposed to be about. And like I said, we're all competitive, we all want to win. But like Rusty's always tried to teach our boys, if you can't win, well, you want your friends to, right? And we're all friends and we're all neighbors first, so there's nothing that should come between us. And hopefully a sale like this, we're all going to root for the success of the sale collectively. And that means everybody's got to elevate.
- [16:41]
A
I commend you all in so many ways for doing that for the public. But also what I want to know now is the different consigners that y' all have coming in that Allows for y' all to have so many head up for display there at Cook's Garage.
- [16:55]
D
Well, that is key. And early on Philly mentioned pride and I certainly have some from being from this area and the quality of cattle that are produced out here. And we're very fortunate that we get to do that that first weekend and March. Then we get to come back here a month later and do that again in April. And don't really take a step down. There's still a lot of quality livestock to offer. Like she, Katie mentioned, they're. They're going to be split pretty evenly across two platforms. CB and half of them. I'm going to give you those guys. First we have Katie's parents, Jody Indian Yates. They're going to be consigning a couple Herefords. Got Sam and Brandon, which would be my brother in law and sister in law there with Bork Stead cattle. I think they were sending an American. She mentioned Bruce Lawrence and that goes all the way back to the Crosby county days and ties there, their limousines. And they're going to be consigned some. And his daughter Amber with her husband Johnny Parkinson, they're going to be consigning some. We got Kyler and Mallory Williams being consigned some Americans. Carver Hereford's going to be bringing some cattle as well. And then we got the Myers, which is Travis and K and Landon and Megan and Toby and Katie. And then, my God, Dorsey is going to be bringing some Clancy Grubin and then also ourselves day show Kettler going to be consigned some. That's going to all be your SC platform.
- [18:14]
A
Awesome. Well, let's walk through the steer bidder as well now.
- [18:18]
D
Okay. You're going to have Brandon, Pat, Sky, Tyler and Philly, Jared Floyd, Kelly Munson and Clay Morrison. So, you know, another lead group, they're filling out that platform as well. And it should total around 90 head when everybody gets everything submitted. I listed you off all these name of consignors and looking over this list, it didn't dawn on me till now, but I think I've either bought or they bought something for me over the course of me selling cattle and have a personal relationship with them both as a buyer and a seller. And I can say with the utmost confidence you're dealing with some of the very best people, not only cattle raisers, but people in the industry. And I think the young people or parents or whoever's going to make the decisions on these purchases needs to take the time that every one of these guys Has a different personality, but they're all approachable, and they want to see their projects do well. So take advantage of the opportunity at this sale to visit with them about the calves you're interested in and make sure you're getting the right calf for you. And they'd be glad to talk cattle with you at any time. They'd be glad to help you on a calf that didn't come from them. They're that kind of people. And take advantage of that, and you're going to make a lifelong friend that can help you in this, your showing career.
- [19:27]
A
Yes, sir. Completely agree. Is there anything else that you, Philly, want to really emphasize and point out on?
- [19:32]
C
The cool thing about this layout is, in comparison to a March sale, is there's so many live sales and it's so busy that half the time you get the sale report and you go, well, dog gone. I didn't even get to visit with those guys, you know, and this is so laid back that we can walk through each lot with you, kick them around, introduce you to people that we think you need to be a fit with, like Rusty said, and really help you from now till next time this year. And I think that's a lost thing now, is that we see these things through or have a relationship to see these things through. Whether you agree with everything we tell you or not, that we mean it, because we've been there from before conception of these animals throughout, and we want them to do you a good job.
- [20:24]
B
And another reason I think we're looking forward to the atmosphere of this sales selfishly, because, man, we're all friends with these other consigners and friends with a lot of these families that are gonna come shopping that weekend. And just the dynamic of the different waves at San Antonio and Houston now. And we understand it and we appreciate those shows, trying to make it more friendly, but we don't get to see each other and visit anymore. I mean, those waves have kind of taken away the just vacation aspect of getting to go to those shows and seeing your buddies. And I'm looking forward to just having the opportunity to visit and catch up with all of them now that stock show season's over with.
- [21:00]
A
Yes, ma', am. For sure. And I think it's incredible that y' all are allowing families to just be right there with the breeders, getting to know them and building relationships. I think that's extremely important. And I think that also just promotes the betterment of the youth, of being able for the youth, being able to talk to those individuals. And growing their communication skills and everything like that. I think that's awful.
- [21:22]
B
And for the future, this, this group is kind of a set that usually has a 1st of April sale of some sort next year. We're looking forward to making it more inclusive and including more consigners and growing this into multi hundred head location type sale for, for families to really have another destination weekend to come to West Texas and go shopping.
- [21:44]
A
That's awesome. Well now with that said, walk me through about what y' all want the atmosphere and environment to look like once someone walks through the doors there at Cook Garage.
- [21:53]
D
We're gonna have them open for viewing at 5 o'. Clock. I think Sal's gonna try to open bidding at that time and close around eight. So you're gonna have a three hours to just look through them. No pressure. You got till 8 o' clock to anytime, you know, be getting bids in. And then I know on the SC side we're gonna talking about doing like a final call around nine and hopefully everything's wrapped up by 10 at the latest. But it's gonna be plenty of time for you to bounce around on lots. If you, you, you know, you go and rank them and your first pick gets a little higher than you want to spend, you got plenty of time to go back and talk to these producers. Hey, what about this one? Did I like second best and I get on him or is this really a fit for me? There's gonna be plenty of time for those kind of one on one interactions that we talked about that we really think is critical to pairing these cattle with the right kid that needs to be having them.
- [22:40]
A
Absolutely. No, I completely agree. So also from what it sounds like there's going to be a dinner hosted as well and everything of that nature to really accommodate to the audience.
- [22:48]
B
Yeah. So I feel like if you're local, maybe you've been to Cook's Garage for, I mean maybe just even go eat supper. But they've had benefit concerts and I mean Turnpike was there back this summer and Red Clay Strait, I mean they have some great concert. Wyatt Flores is there tonight. That's where Ryder and his buddies are. So a lot of people are familiar with it. It sits right off of Interstate. It's real convenient location, great parking. They do have a, I mean a fantastic restaurant. We're going to have that, that half of that facility is going to be closed exclusively for our Lubbock Lights event and our crowd. So you won't be able to, you know, having a mingle and wait in Line with other Lubbock folks. It's. It's just going to be for. For our crowd. So you'll be able to eat, be served from the restaurant right over there. And then. I'm kidding you, right. Right outside the door are going to be the cattle. So it's. It's going to be. We're excited about the venue. The weather looks to be perfect. I mean, God's blessing us on Easter weekend, and he's wanting us to get it wrapped up so we can get to sunrise service the next morning. So we're going to do our very best to run it very efficiently and give everybody time. We don't want them to feel rushed. We want it to be very inclusive, but also trying to respect everybody's time because it is Easter weekend.
- [23:59]
A
Another question that I got is in terms of getting the cattle or loading out or anything like that, is that something that y' all have prepared for? Just in terms of. Let's say someone shows up with a trailer, we're going to load them up that night. Is that something that y' all are going to be doing or what's that look like?
- [24:16]
B
Yeah, we'll accommodate anybody. The Shane Melcher with the behind the chutes is. They're setting up and laying out that design, and we're. We're talking with them. We will for sure have a loadout because we'll probably haul them in haltered just so that they'll stay cleaner. But we'll be loading all of our stuff out off of the halter. So obviously there'll be need to be some. Some sort of loadout. So if anybody wants to bring a trailer and plans on getting something bought, we'll. We'll sure be able to load them out that night.
- [24:43]
D
And obviously with an online set, a lot of these may be purchased. Not. Not in attendance. And over the next weekend, we'll work together and we'll get rides to wherever we want to go across the state. It's what always happens this weekend anyway, with all these online sales that are coming together for this event is we'll get rides to each other going different directions and kind of help out on that, too.
- [25:04]
A
Perfect. Well, overall, sounds like an extremely friendly family environment, but I know that it will allow everybody that is interested to be extremely close or create a friendship or relationship with a breeder or consign or anything like that is definitely what y' all are trying to create out there. And I think that this just allows for anybody that didn't have the confidence to bid on a calf prior to Texas Majors ending or anything, that this is what allows a family to say, hey, okay, now we can start over. We got all our calves out of the barn now. Now we can start over and go look for something. And I think with the amount of head that is going to be there and be able to see them live there and then bid at the same time while eat a good meal and be around great people, I think that this is a phenomenal event.
- [25:54]
B
Yeah, we're. This weekend of sales has been established. It's not like these 90 calves that we're putting in, it wouldn't be available anyway. It's mostly just the central location and then just the vibe that we're trying to. To have with the Lubbock lights.
- [26:07]
A
Yes, ma', am. For sure. Well, with that said, what I'd like to know is, is there any additional comments or. Or anything of that nature that you'd like to leave the audience with before we wrap this up? Like I said before, I'm extremely grateful to help push this and represent this for y'. All.
- [26:23]
C
I think one of the coolest things about this set and this set of folks that are putting them together is these aren't our leftovers from March. These are brand new stock that most people haven't even laid eyes on. It's not that they are the bottom end or any of that. It's just that they are the ones that are now ready. I mean, honestly, how many have y' all had that? They have sold this sale and gone on, you know, and done just as well as the first set. I mean, every year there's ones that they're like, oh, man, I wish we would have made that trek out there again. But now it's more readily available in one spot.
- [27:00]
B
The quality will be great. Pictures and videos are just starting to flow in. We hope to have the sale posted on Monday. That's the plan. And I mean, this is going to be a tremendous set of cattle. I'd say they'd fit anywhere from the Sandhill show at Odessa Fort Worth, for sure. And I mean, I would say a multitude of slick sheared breed contenders.
- [27:20]
A
Yes, ma'. Am. I think that the, the amount of cattle there definitely should be quite a bit of variety. And just knowing and hearing of all the consignors that will be there, it's nothing short of elite, I would have to say that. And I bet there's something for everyone out there if you're still looking for a show steer. So I am once again extremely excited for this opportunity. I'll actually be attending there myself to the sale live. Very excited to look at it all and be a part of it and just be around all the amazing people that y' all have set there. I think it's going to be a phenomenal event and I can't wait to see with my own two eyes. So with all this said, I do appreciate y' all allowing empower you to partner with y' all and push this and expose what y' all have going out there. I'm very excited. Once again, with all this said, if y' all have nothing else left, I'd like to just leave the audience with. I would highly encourage anyone and everyone that hasn't yet finished buying their club Calves to make a run out there because I think it's going to be an awesome event.
- [28:17]
C
Thank you.
- [28:17]
B
All right, Weston, appreciate your time.
- [28:19]
A
Absolutely. Thank y'.
- [28:20]
D
All.
- [28:20]
A
We'll see y' all next time.