Bidding adieu
Raymond Patterson marked his 58th anniversary as an auctioneer Aug. 1.
“I’ve worked in more than 7,200 auction sales,” said Patterson, 81, from the porch of his Nottingham Township home as an American flag flapped in the same breeze that softly rippled through wind chimes.
“I don’t intend to do another 7,200 sales. Time and age creep up on me. I don’t need any glamour and glory for what I did.”
But in West Alexander, some of his fellow farmers have decided to send a bit of praise his way.
Barbara Reed, secretary-treasurer of the West Alexander Fair board of directors, said of Patterson, “He’s been an auctioneer at both the Washington County Fair and West Alex for years.”
A plaque to be presented to Patterson at 11 a.m. Saturday in the show arena at the beginning of the West Alexander Fair 4-H market livestock sale recognizes his volunteer service with appreciation for 35 years, because that’s how far back the documentation goes.
Patterson said Thursday, “It’s more than that, but that’s alright. It doesn’t matter.”
As Patterson recalls, about 40 years ago, a West Alexander Fair board member offered to pay him to wield the gavel at the annual 4-H livestock auction.
Patterson accepted the job but declined the paycheck because an auctioneer’s work ethic, he said, should always include donating one’s time to charitable and nonprofit causes, even when, in his peak year, he was kept busy with 169 sales.
4-H is an endeavor that Patterson has lived. As a youth, he was president of Nottingham’s first club concentrating on agriculture. On the family’s 128-acre homestead where generations have lived for 120 years, he raised Jersey cattle as a dairy project and Berkshire hogs for, as he put it, “ham, bacon and chops.”
As a Trinity High School graduate, Class of 1952, he also earned his state farmer degree from the Future Farmers of America.
In 1970, Patterson started raising beef cattle, a 20-year enterprise. These days, a donkey named Eeyore and a few ponies still call the Patterson farm home.
Nottingham Township and West Alexander are at opposite ends of the county, but the distance doesn’t matter to Patterson, who said he’s traveled from the “Statue of Liberty to the Pacific Ocean and from the Mexican border to the Canadian border,” putting in many miles as a professional bid caller with major auction houses.
More than 150 steers, lambs and swine will go on the auction block, and Reed expects the 11 a.m. sale to last until about 4 p.m.
“There are a lot of good quality animals this year,” she said, including Krista Bosanac’s champion lamb and Eric Putnak’s champion hog. The champion steer was to be chosen Thursday night.