View past newsletters on the IAA website:

Well, I hope all is well with everyone and I'm sure like many of you, I'm ready for winter to be over! I wanted to thank all of the members who took the time this year to attend the 2023 Iowa Auctioneers Convention. We had 88 registered members attend this year and a lot of positive feedback. We hope you left with a little something new to use in your auction business. I think growth as an organization is very important and sometimes challenging for any organization. I ask you as a member to help promote the association to a competitor in your area that may not have attended this year or just isn't a member in general. Let them know how much fun we have as a group and the learning opportunity they are missing out on. I have a great feeling about this upcoming year after your new board met the morning after the conference. I felt like in the little bit of time we had that morning we got a head start on the year. We have the dates set for 2024!!!! We will be having the 2024 convention on January 25th-27th at the Sheraton West Des Moines. We meet again the first week in April and plan to get the ball rolling on many things that need attention. A couple of those things are the website needing a makeover and a plan in place for the 2023 state fair! If anyone needs anything from me feel free to call or email me at any time!

Wise Auction Service

641.420.7355

We wanted to give everyone an update from the 2023 Iowa Corn Classic Open Auctioneer Championship. For those of you who could attend, we felt it turned out to be a much larger event than last year. Once the final numbers come together, we feel we will end up with very good results again. Our sponsors, Sinclair Tractors, ATG Proxibid, AuctionTime, and Merschmann Seeds, who have supported this program for both years deserve our utmost respect. With their continued support, and the assistance that Mallory Robinson and all of the staff at the Beef Expo provide for us, is helping develop this contest into an event that has the opportunity to become one of the best contests in the upper Midwest if not the country.

This year we had 16 contestants registered from 8 states. Unfortunately, one had to drop out due to flights and travel issues, but that is expected at times. Once we made it to the final round, we had 4 states represented in the Top 7. The 2023 winner was Shawn Hagler from Arizona. This year we had 9 new competitors over 2022. That proves Auctioneers are watching this contest and each contestant did a great job representing the industry in a very professional manner.

The Junior and College 4-H and FFA livestock judging contest were happening on the same day and we were given a few minutes to talk to the kids and tell them about the contest as well as the NAA program that is available to FFA members to use Auctions as their SAE project.

To top off our contest we raised $7,000.00 for the IJJBA scholarship fund. Needless to say, that created a lot of excitement in the arena during the Final Round. And as you imagine the Beef Expo is beyond excited about what the IAA does for the kids. And, they are so supportive by arranging for breeders and their children to participate in the scholarship part of the program.

Attendance was up considerably this year. We had a nice crowd all day and we expect that the number of attendees and bidders will keep growing into the future. We are pleased with our timing. The entire contest was wrapped up in approximately 2.5 hours. We streamed it on IAA FB Live as well as LiveAuctions.TV also streamed it live through their network. Their company hosts livestock auctions nationwide. And, they aired the event at no charge to the IAA.

We had a couple of young ladies who are professional photographers offer their services before the event to take photos and video through the contest. They provided their services to exhibit what they offer with their marketing and photography companies.

Finally, a sincere Thank y\You to all those who entered to compete in the Corn Classic, and a special thanks goes out to the members who have helped pull this contest together each year. Everyone needs to consider supporting this event in the future, either as an entrant, a sponsor, a bidder, assisting with the event the day of, or as a committee member in coordinating the contest. It is a great day, we have some fun and support youth in agriculture.

See you at the next Corn Classic!

Editor’s note: Special thanks to Paul McCartan and Jim Huff for all their work to make this a successful event!