By: Jane Schuchardt
Special to The Elgin Review
Auctioneering gibberish? Heck no. Those are real filler words sandwiched between the last bid and the new asking price, all designed to give the buyer time to think between bids.
And the best of the best in the world this year is Dean Edge from Rimbey, Alberta, Canada, who swung by the Elgin Livestock Market on Monday (August 18, 2025) to promote the practice of auctioneered sales to determine a fair price for livestock. A packed sale barn on a steaming hot day also got to experience Edge showcasing his skills.
In his ninth competition, Edge was named champion June 10th in Dunlap, IA in the finals that were preceded by regional qualifiers and the Calgary Stampede International. Edge estimated 125 highly skilled auctioneers competed along the way.
Now he’s on a tightly scheduled one-year tour organized by the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) to local livestock markets in the United States and Canada. LMA, headquartered in Overland Park, KS, has some 800 member businesses and is dedicated to the open and competitive auction method of marketing livestock.
As a guest of Elgin Livestock Sales, Inc., a family-owned business, Ted Baum, the sale barn’s auctioneer/manager, who has also placed in these competitions, welcomed Edge to our town. With his signature white cowboy hat, polished cowboy boots, and flashy belt buckle, Edge had a few minutes to graciously answer questions before taking to the sale barn’s raised platform. His down-home style, coupled with charm, humor and clarity, were the foundation for a mind-boggling demonstration of his skills selling cattle.
“Got two, asking two twenty-five, will you give, would you give . . .,” said so fast by Edge that consigners and buyers were holding their collective breaths in amazement. “We’re trying to get the most we can for the seller and keep the buyer happy,” he said with pride, adding that the cattle industry is a close-knit, trusting community.
Edge, 45, caught the auctioneering passion in high school when he had a social studies teacher with auctioneering skills he described as a ‘rambler’. He also grew up near 2004 World Champion Dan Skeels who encouraged him.
He finished the intensive two-week program at Montana’s Western College of Auctioneering in 1999 and a two-year program at Olds College of Agriculture and Technology, Olds, Alberta, Canada, with a rural small business and agriculture entrepreneurship certification in 2002.
…see more at this week’s Elgin Review.
