Sonoma County Fair’s lamb auction brings out the bidders

The top lamb at this year’s Sonoma County Fair was shown by a self-described city kid who enjoys experiencing a bit of the country life and who competes at multiple venues with his animals.

Owen Clark, a freshman at Sonoma Academy, stood in the auction ring Saturday morning as his Supreme Grand Champion lamb was purchased for $19 a pound, or a total of $2,850. The buyer, fair concessionaire Ovations Fanfare Catering of Costa Mesa, paid more than 13 times the market price of $1.37 a pound.

Clark’s lamb, a Hampshire from Iowa named Shaggy, was the first animal sold Saturday as the fair kicked off its annual junior livestock auction. After 255 lambs went through the ring, the auctioneers sold rabbits and goats.

The hog and poultry auctions are slated to follow Friday, with the steer sale on Aug. 1.

Auction buyers annually have spent a total of more than $1 million for eight straight years, including a record $1.28 million in 2014.

Fair board member Annette O’Kelley, a newly retired agriculture teacher, encouraged the audience Saturday to dig deep again this year and reward the youths for their hard work.

“I call them livestock scholarships,” O’Kelley said of the dollars the students receive for their animals.

Clark, 14, a Santa Rosan and a Green Valley 4-H member, has been showing lambs since he was 10.

This season, he is raising nine animals and already has shown some of them at the California State Fair and the Arizona National Livestock show, where he was awarded the Grand Champion Market Lamb. In October he plans to compete at the American Royal livestock exhibition in Kansas City.

Clark and his 10-year-old brother, Alister, held each other’s trophies and awards when it was time to show their animals in the auction ring Saturday. Alister’s lamb was named the Champion 4-H Dorset.

Raising so many animals requires Clark to tightly manage his time outside school. But he said he enjoys the experience, partly because it “opened my eyes into a different culture.”

By that, he means he gets a chance to feel “like a country kid. And I’m probably the farthest thing from it.”

The fairground’s Wilford Ring swirled with action Saturday in the minutes before the 9 a.m. sale.

Fair board members and bidders mingled among the rows of red-and-white checkered tables set up in front of the auction ring. On the stand above, auctioneers Tony Brazil - a fixture at the sales for 58 years - and Rex Williams waited, decked out in straw cowboy hats.

Behind the ring, 4-H members with green ties or kerchiefs and FFA students in blue jackets lined up the first group of lambs.

O’Kelley and other fair officials suggested that Saturday’s young participants represent the future of agriculture.

As youths, many of today’s farmers and ranchers stood in the auction ring and built lasting friendships during their days at the fair, O’Kelley said. She predicted the same will happen this year.

“They’re making lifelong memories,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @rdigit.