How long did it take you to find your voice and your rhythm when you were actually behind the microphone?

Takes a long time.

I graduated auction school, and I actually came over to the fairgrounds here when we used to do our three-time-a-year agarn event, and I sold my first item about 14 years ago now, and I'll never forget what my dad said.

He said, another 9,000 lots, and you'll have something.

And it's not like you graduated auction school and you all of a sudden have it.

It's a practice skill, and obviously I had the advantage of watching Grandpa, watching Dad, watching Brad Olstead, and other people in our organization.

And monkeys see, monkeys do, and you learn from watching.

But what sort of machinery trends are you seeing when you're conducting your auctions this year?

Could you talk more about that?

Yeah.

So for those of you who don't know, about two years ago now, we purchased Bruce Szczepanski Auctioneers up in Tisdale, Saskatchewan.

And, uh, we've got a, a team of about 25 people up there now.

And, uh, I actually had the privilege of going up there, uh, two weeks ago to help Jake with a big real estate auction.

We're gonna be selling 36 quarters, uh, for two Dutch brothers that are gonna be retiring and, and downsizing their operation.

Um, and, you know, up in Canada, we talk about the farm consolidation that's occurred here in the States.

Are there some other highlights to sales that you'll be seeing, uh, soon here in the, our area as well?

I caught up with Max as he is packing up his audio gear after the sale.

So Max, in your own words, why is this sale so important to the youth and agriculture in the future? In your own words.

In my own words, I would just say it's really important as a nation that we keep our youth connected to our agrarian roots.

Whether it's row crop or animal agriculture, I think it's incredibly important.

Cass County is unique in the sense that we're close to Fargo.

We get a tremendous amount of kids that come out that don't have that connection to agriculture that a lot of people do have in rural Cass County.

So it's wonderful to support, and we've been out here.

What did you see up there?