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Working to reward the kids Mail Tribune/Drew Fleming Ron Anderson, who raises cattle in the country around Eagle Point and Butte Falls, will auction youngster�s livestock projects this week at the Jackson County Fair. Anderson�s glue keeps fair auction strong By Bill Kettler Ron Anderson will help 500 kids earn extra money this week. Boys and girls in 4-H and Future Farmers of America have spent the past year feeding and training their hogs and steers. Anderson will auction the kids� project animals after they put them through their paces in the show ring during this week�s Jackson County Fair. This year�s fair The Jackson County Fair is open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. The carnival is open noon to midnight Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $7 for adults, $4 for children 7 to 12 and seniors over 62. Highlights on the Main Stage, which are included in the price of admission, are as follows: Tuesday: Toby Keith, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., followed by fireworks Wednesday: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, 8 p.m. Thursday: Gallagher, 8 p.m. Friday : Tanya Tucker, 9 p.m. Saturday: War, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., followed by fireworks Hundreds of people will gather in the livestock auction building to watch Anderson work the crowd to reward the kids for a year�s worth of twice-a-day feedings, training sessions, and manure shoveling. "The auction has become known as the largest youth fund-raiser in the county," says the fourth generation Jackson County resident. "It�s a big deal." Last year, bidders paid more than $850,000 for 4-H and FFA livestock. People who have watched the auction grow over the years give Anderson much of the credit for making it one of the most successful county fair livestock auctions on the West Coast. "You don�t have somebody who stays with a program that long unless he�s got some kind of vision," says John Dimick, who serves with Anderson on the Jackson County Fair Board. "He�s been the foundation of the auction," Dimick says. "There have been a lot of people behind the scenes that have helped bring it along, but he�s always been the glue that held it all together and made sure all those people were going in the same direction." "He�s worked for the fair for countless hours," says Margie Dode, swine supervisor at this year�s fair. "A lot of people like to put money into kids when they see them going in the wrong direction. I think Ron likes to put money into kids that are going in the right direction" Anderson�s connection to the fair goes back as long as he can remember. His grandfather was a member of the fair board, and Anderson showed steers and swine as a youth. When he outgrew showing his own animals, his grandfather put him to work as a fair volunteer. "He kind of groomed me for it," Anderson says. When his grandfather died in 1964, Anderson just kept working as a volunteer. Besides serving on the fair board, he works on the auction committee, and he�s superintendent of the beef exhibitors. He helped organize the fair auctions long before he started calling them. Professional auctioneers used to "cry" the sales but one year the scheduled auctioneer didn�t show up. "Ron had been fooling around with (auctioning) a little bit," Dimick recalls. "So he stood up and away we went." He�s been crying the sales ever since. Dimick says Anderson makes the bidding easy for people who don�t have much familiarity with the auction scene. "He�s easy to understand and the buyers like that," Dimick says. Most of our customers only go to (the fair) auctions. You have to work hard at making sure they know where they�re at and what it takes to bid. Ron�s good at that. He�s got a real skill." Anderson still enjoys watching kids learn responsibility as they learn to handle and manage livestock. "That�s the great thing about this program. Kids get a taste of responsibility. If you�re not responsible, what good are you?" Community support for the auction still surprises him, even after two decades. "There�s times I have to swallow pretty hard to keep going," he says, when people bid thousands of dollars for a youngster�s steer or hog. "Sometimes it�s hard not to get choked up." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA