Guadalupe County Youth Show to wrap up on Saturday with premium sale
(Seguin) – Buyer beware. Guadalupe County youth have reportedly come to the table with plenty of quality projects during this year’s Guadalupe County Youth Livestock and Homemakers Show. The show got underway Tuesday at the Guadalupe County Fairgrounds.
This year’s show will wrap up on Saturday with the annual premium sale. Top projects will be up for bid and youth will be looking to take home some very well-deserved cash prizes and scholarships. A total of 516 area students each representing the various schools in Guadalupe County have participated this week in the show. Due to many of them having multiple projects, this year’s youth show welcomed a total of 1,564 entries.
Explaining the auction or premium sale process in detail is Megan Reiley, the co-secretary for the youth show committee.
“How our auction works is the kids are going to come up on the auction block and we actually kind of preset our auction so we use a multiple buyer form so before the kid actually gets up on the auction block, there has been a form that has been passed around, checked out by different buyers and those buyers can go ahead and kind of pre-write on that form so for example, we can say KWED is going to put $100 on x student and they signed that off and then it kind of gets passed around so when the student actually gets on the auction block, they may already have anywhere from $1500-$2,000 on their form. So, it’s not quite a traditional auction where we sell it from the floor, we kind of already have an amount that is set and then, we sell that,” said Reiley.
Reiley says thanks to a number of community supporters, all kids who make it to the stage on Saturday will be recognized.
“Now, there are going to be some exhibitors that might not have any amount on there and if that happens, we do sell it from the floor. We have a lot of preset buyers on the floor that they are specifically there for those students that don’t have any of those amounts on there pre-set,” said Reiley.
Reiley says this year, the committee is hoping to solicit even more first time supporters.
“If you are a businessperson wanting to come down to spend money, but you don’t know who to spend money on, that’s a great position for you to be in because we do have a lot of kids who might not have those pre done buyers who come and put their names on it. So, if you are a buyer or an organization who says, ‘we want to donate $1,000,’ we have a group of our sales committee that can do that buying for them so when we have a kid that needs $100 here or $200 there, we can spend that money for them if they’d like to do that. That’s kind of how the sales process works,” said Reiley.
Meanwhile, Reiley says a person doesn’t need to have a big wallet to show their support.
“We have no minimum when it comes to add-ons. To be on the auction floor actually the day of the auction, it has to be $100 to get on the piece of paper but if you know an exhibitor and you just want to give them $5, $10, $20, you can do that as an add-on and so you can do that from our website. You can come here to the show office. You can email us, and we can send you an invoice for any amount of money that you want to do,” said Reiley.
Reiley says the premium sale is expected to bring a full day of support for area youth.
“The auction will start at 12 o’clock sharp. Doors will open at 10:30 a.m. There’s a lot of pre-stuff going on before the auction. We have some presentations. A lot of buyers start to come in, so we do encourage people to come early, get settled, get everything figured out, check in their buyers and then just enjoy the rest of the day. The past few years, we have gone to almost 9 p.m. So, it is a really really long day and we do have some buyers who come in at the end of the day to spend their money – some that come in the morning and then leave. There really is no right or wrong. We are just grateful for any buyer that is here to support our youth and donate any money they can,” said Reiley.
Reiley says after COVID, things appear to be getting back to normal. Not only is the committee thankful to have the entire show back at the fairgrounds, but it’s also excited about the new level of community support.
“Our numbers are up from last year, which is what we are always hoping for, and we are really hoping for our sale to continue to go up. Every year, we have continued to raise more money for our kids and that’s what we are really hoping for this year,” said Reiley.
Those wishing to get a jumpstart on Saturday’s sale are asked to visit www.gcys.org.