The records continue to fall at the Montgomery County Junior Livestock Auction.

This year’s auction that was held on July 16 at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds Youth Arena set a record for gross receipts. It made $714,121, almost doubling last year’s total of $394,000, which was the previous record. The auction made a net profit of $638,027.

The auction, which lasted for nearly six hours, had 215 exhibitors in this year’s auction, up from 200 last year. Hogs were the most sold at the event with 85, followed by rabbits with 68.

The Grand Champions were Kolton Craven (chicken), Kyndall Groeber (lamb), Taylor Grotewiel (hog), Kristen Buesking (steer), Kendra Stille (rabbit) and Matthew Oliver (goat).

The Reserve Champions were Bennett Freie (chicken), Brody Ludy (hog), Emily Lampkin (steer), Lorena Uthlaut (lamb), Carl Johnson (rabbit) and Lukas Oliver (goat).

“Additionally, we welcomed nearly 100 new buyers, which was truly remarkable,” said Chasity Lichtenberg, secretary of the Montgomery County Fair Board.

Lichtenberg said this year’s auction added new features for auction participants.

“This year, we successfully implemented add-ons in a much more impactful manner,” she said. “An add-on occurs when a buyer chooses to allocate a specific dollar amount to a particular exhibitor. This approach greatly benefited those who were ready to leave, as they could easily select whom they wanted to support financially before heading home. Ultimately, we achieved an impressive total of $34,858 in additional sales for our exhibitors.”

Also this year, a new livestock/auction office was built. Lichtenberg said the Fair Board decided for the fairgrounds to have a single, larger building instead of having several smaller buildings in the past. The rabbit barn, restrooms and livestock office were demolished last fall.

“Since we had planned to implement our software for running the auction ourselves this year, we aimed to ensure the new space catered to those requirements,” Lichtenberg said. “During fair week, there is always a demand for a quiet area to prepare paperwork for events like shows and auctions. We needed a sufficiently large space to accommodate multiple people working on these tasks. This upgrade proved to be a tremendous asset this year.”

Lichtenberg said local contractors helped with the building project, such as Stacey Begeman Construction, CCC Construction, Kessler Plumbing, Gilbert Construction, Central Heating and Cooling, Lumix Electrical and Gilbert and Sons Construction. The Fair Board crafted the design.

“The new rabbit barn area is nearly double the size of the previous one, the restrooms feature more stalls than before and the office is more spacious than the one we were using,” Lichtenberg said.