Kerr County Stock Show: Old Rivals Wage $25 Add-On War

Two Rival Ranchers Sponsoring the Same Exhibitor Spend Four Hours Outbidding Each Other, $25 at a Time, on a Goat Neither Will Own

KERRVILLE, Texas — The Kerr County Stock Show sale ran long Saturday after two rival ranchers sponsoring the same 14-year-old exhibitor spent most of the afternoon outbidding each other in $25 increments, in support of a market goat that, under show rules, was always going home with her anyway.

At the Kerr County sale, exhibitors keep their animals. Buyers are said to “buy the student’s success,” with bids pooled in $500 increments and add-ons accepted in $25 increments. Both men understood this perfectly, and ignored it like men politely at war since a 2009 county fair pie auction.

The goat, a 94-pound wether named Pecan, watched the entire event from the sidelines with the calm of an animal who knew he was not for sale and suspected nobody else in the building did.

How a Kerr County Goat Became a Border Dispute

One is a retired mohair man from Ingram. The other runs cows near Center Point. The two have disagreed, every morning since at the feed-store coffee table, about which animal truly built Kerr County.

The mohair man points out that by the 1930s Kerrville was known as the Mohair Capital of the World. He further notes that in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, goats in Kerr County outnumbered cattle 8,800 to 7,949.

“That’s a technicality,” the cattleman responds every year. “The goats arranged it.”

The cattleman counters with the Y.O. Ranch in Mountain Home, famous for its longhorns, which made its last cattle drive in 1941. “Nobody ever drove a goat to Kansas,” he says. “Nobody wrote a song about it.” The mohair man has, since 2014, been writing that song. It has eleven verses and no chorus, because, in his words, “goats don’t repeat themselves.”

When the girl who has worked weekends on both their places, a Tivy Antlers freshman, announced she would show a market goat this year, the cattleman took it hard. The mohair man took it as a coronation.

Cowboy Breakfast, 4:50 A.M.: The Opening Shots

Hostilities began Monday at the courthouse Cowboy Breakfast, the 6 a.m. kickoff to stock show week that goes on regardless of temperature and has been held in the low 20s.

Each man was determined to get the first plate “on behalf of the exhibitor.” Each arrived at 4:50 a.m. Neither acknowledged the other. A volunteer said the two men stood in the dark, in 22 degrees, for an hour and ten minutes “like two fence posts with opinions.” At 6:00 they reached the serving line simultaneously and each insisted the other go first, a standoff that ended only when a sheriff’s deputy took the first plate himself.

Both men then watched the traditional cow chip toss between county and City of Kerrville officials and privately scored it. Both scored it differently.

Later that week came the race to dress meat goats in body suits and tutus. The two ranchers spent the warm-up arguing about tutu color: the mohair man wanted natural white, “for heritage,” and the cattleman wanted Hereford red, “for accuracy.” While they argued, the exhibitor put Pecan in a purple body suit and a yellow tutu in 41 seconds, beat her heat, and returned to find them still discussing it.

The Kerr County Stock Show Sale, Itemized

Saturday’s buyer lunch began at 11 a.m. and the sale at 1 p.m. in the Happy State Bank Expo Hall at the Hill Country Youth Event Center on Highway 27. Pecan’s lot came up at 1:52. The pooled bid closed without incident. The add-on table did not.

A partial record of the add-on table, reconstructed from napkins:

• 1:58 p.m. Mohair man adds $25. Cattleman adds $25, plus a second $25 “for having thought of it first.”
• 2:20 p.m. Twenty-two add-ons in. The volunteer runs out of add-on cards and begins writing on buyer-lunch napkins.
• 2:31 p.m. Cattleman attempts to add on “one bred heifer, payable in spring.” Rejected. Add-ons are $25 increments, not livestock.
• 2:33 p.m. Mohair man attempts to add on “twelve pounds of kid mohair, washed.” Rejected, on the same grounds and also on smell.
• 2:47 p.m. Mohair man adds $25 on behalf of each of the 19 exhibitors at the original 1933 Fat Lamb Show, individually, by name where known. Total: $475.
• 2:55 p.m. Cattleman adds $25 on behalf of each of the 31 counties in the old district show. Total: $775.
• 3:09 p.m. Cattleman’s phone calculator dies at 3%. He asks to borrow the exhibitor’s phone. She declines, because she is using it to track the running total for her record book.
• 3:11 p.m. Mohair man produces a solar pocket calculator from 1987. The Expo Hall lighting is insufficient. He goes outside to calculate. He is gone eight minutes.

The record for a first-place market goat at the show is $17,500. Pecan’s add-ons did not approach it. Both men have nevertheless memorized the number and now refer to it, separately, as “the target.”

What Kerr County 4-H Actually Grades

At 3:19, while the mohair man was still outdoors holding a calculator toward the sun, the exhibitor walked to the add-on table and asked the volunteer, quietly, to close her lot “for the dignity of the hall.” The volunteer, 81 minutes into napkins, agreed instantly.

The money goes where it is supposed to go. The association says it has paid out nearly $3 million in scholarships, and exhibitors must keep a minimum GPA, which the exhibitor does with room to spare. Her record book, kept through Kerr County 4-H and AgriLife Extension, now includes a page titled ADD-ONS (RIVALRY-RELATED), with columns for time, amount, and “reason given.”

One Thank-You Note, Two Frames

Every exhibitor writes thank-you notes to buyers. The exhibitor wrote one. It was addressed to “Gentlemen, Combined,” listed a single total, and declined to say who gave more.

Both men objected. The cattleman proposed settling whose name should appear first with a cow chip toss, “same as the county does.” The mohair man agreed, on the condition that the chip be goat. County officials, reached about borrowing equipment, said the chip was not available for private disputes.

The exhibitor made two photocopies and mailed one to Ingram and one to Center Point. Each man received an identical note. Each has framed it. And each has told Farm.FM, separately and without being asked, that his frame cost more.

Five Humorous Observations About Texas 4-H Livestock Shows

1. In Kerr County the kid keeps the goat. So two grown men spent four hours bidding on something that was never leaving her barn. That’s not an auction. That’s a feed-store coffee argument with a microphone.
2. Goats outnumber cattle in Kerr County by about 850 head. The cattleman calls that a technicality. The goats call it a majority, and they’ve been voting with their mouths on his fence for years.
3. One rancher tried to add on a bred heifer. The other tried to add on twelve pounds of mohair. Somewhere a volunteer wrote both on a napkin, crossed both out, and aged a full year.
4. The show started in 1933 as the Fat Lamb Show with 19 exhibitors. Ninety-some years later, one old mohair man paid $25 apiece to honor every one of them. None of those 19 kids ever got that kind of money, and they actually showed lambs.
5. The exhibitor dressed a goat in a tutu in 41 seconds and closed a runaway auction with one sentence. The two ranchers needed an hour and ten minutes to stand in a parking lot. Kerr County’s future is in good hands. Its present is outside holding a calculator up to the sun.