Bids should reach beyond names

Every year I tell myself I’m going to write a column about the 4-H livestock auction at the Jay County Fair.
And every year I hold off.
Why? Because despite the fact that I enjoy the auction and have been a regular in attendance for nearly 40 years now, I continue to be ambivalent about the lessons it is teaching our young people.
If you’ve never been to the auction, it works like this. Buyers bid on animals raised as 4-H livestock projects. But they don’t bid anything close to the real value. Instead, their bids reflect a premium payment that goes to the kid.
The thinking is, a 4-Her who has made the effort to raise the animal should get a bid above market price, some money that can be set aside for college or used for some special splurge.
And, by and large, the system works. Kids get a premium. Buyers get a good feeling for having helped young people and 4-H. And the bidders on grand champions get a bit of extra publicity by getting their picture in the paper.
What could be wrong with that? Absolutely nothing.
But at the same time, there’s a parallel reality to the auction. And it’s the one that sends some unfortunate messages.
A kid steps into the ring to auction his or her animal. These days, unless it’s a grand champion or reserve grand champion, it’s just the kid himself or herself alone in the ring.
But they’re not alone.
They are accompanied by their name.
And in far too many cases, it’s the name that gets auctioned off.
Who are the bidders?
Banks that do business with the family, lawyers who see the family members as clients, implement dealers, seed companies and vendors of a hundred different stripes.
Their goal — parallel to the auction described above — is to do a little business schmoozing, greasing the skids for the next deal, saying thanks for the last one.
Nothing wrong with that, I guess.
But I worry about the message it sends.
If the message we’re trying to communicate to our children is that it’s not who you are but what you are, the auction undermines that message.
If we’re trying to tell our kids that names don’t matter, people do, we’re contradicting ourselves.
Several years ago, I found myself in a debate with some students at Jay County High School.
They were insisting that kids with the right last names got special treatment at JCHS. I didn’t believe that then and I don’t want to believe it now. Instead, I told them, that’s something that just becomes an excuse.
But then, afterwards, I thought of the annual 4-H livestock auction, the same one I took part in again last month, and I found myself worrying that the students might have a point.
I’ll still go to the auction. I believe in 4-H, and I always have a good time. But I’ll also do what I always do: Look for kids who aren’t getting the bids they should get, look for kids I’ve never heard of, kids from single parent homes, kids falling through the gaps.
And then I will bid.