COALTON — Strictly speaking, selling Alexis Russell’s goat before all the others was against the rules.
But sometimes, rules need to be broken.
A number of the buyers at the Boyd County Fair’s livestock auction Saturday got wind of Alexis’ medical problems, and asked fair officials if they could go ahead and bid on her animal first.
Alexis, they had learned, had just been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. She has had one surgery already and her parents are getting ready to take her back to Columbus for further procedures.
Maybe if the 7-year-old could get a good price for her goat, it would help with the expenses, they said.
Only thing is, Alexis’ goat weighed in below the limit for market animals, making it eligible for sale only at the tail end of the auction — when some buyers have emptied their pocketbooks or left altogether.
It didn’t take long for officials to make a decision: of course they would make an exception.
So, shortly after the grand and reserve champions had had their moment of glory and fetched premium prices, Alexis found herself in the show ring with her goat.
Wearing a purple blouse and a pink ribbon in her hair, she paraded nervously around the arena as the bids showered down.
Auctioneer Cavel Bush didn’t have to cajole the buyers, who quickly pushed the bids to unprecedented heights. When his patter ended, a group of 20 buyers had bought the goat for $100 per pound. That put $4,760 in the family’s coffers.
To put that in perspective, the grand champion goat brought $6.25 per pound.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The buyers donated the goat back to Alexis, who marched the scrawny animal back into the ring and sold it once more, fetching a winning bid of $2,000.
Alexis’ mother, Amber Holley, felt tears welling up in her eyes as the bids mounted. “It’s OK,”?she told a friend who paused to comfort her. “These are tears of happiness.”
“I?always thought I had good friends but I didn’t realize just how awesome they really are,”?she said.
The gesture of generosity is typical of fair folk, for whom the Boyd County Fair is as much a community as an event,?according to county agricultural extension agent Lyndall Harned. “That’s just the kind of people we have here,”?he said.
There was a final surprise. Alexis’ sister Sarah announced that she would donate whatever she received for her market goat to Alexis’ medical fund. The 52-pound animal sold for a high bid of $25 per pound, giving the family an additional $1,300 to chip away their expenses.
Alexis’ parents just learned the seriousness of her condition Tuesday, when lab results came back from analysis of a growth surgeons removed from her leg earlier this month. It is a tumor, a rare form of cancer that at the least will require medical attention four times a year in a Columbus hospital.
The family planned to head out of town today for the next round of surgery, with a stop for a day at King’s Island along the way.
MIKE?JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.
