Crosby Fair & Rodeo wrap-up Grand Champion Steer sells for $11,500 – Cody Stephens honored

Grand Champion Steer shown by Ashton Walker and was purchased by CertiFab Inc.

By Lewis Spearman

CROSBY – The Crosby Fair & Rodeo hosted their annual Livestock Auction and amassed an impressive $284,450 after the updates and resales.

This year, unlike others, the Grand Champion Steer was not the top sale although it went for $11,500 to Ashton Walker for CertiFab Inc. it looked as if the steer would not gross above $6,000 but the auctioneer, Ed Phillips, reminded the audience of the importance in community recognition and elevated the sale beyond last year. Phillips has been with the Crosby Fair & Rodeo for the last 25 years.

According to Doug Hall, Chairman of the Crosby Fair & Rodeo, “We appreciate the community’s support. One of the things I especially appreciated was that the prices stayed somewhat mutual throughout the sale. One of our traditions is that we try to take care of kids participating without prices falling off towards the end of the sale.”

This year Cody Stephens’ Grand Champion Hog was sold for $13,750. There were three fajita barbecue pits made by Cody Stephens’ F.F.A. class sold as the auction was going on and the net results of this sale according to Scott Stephens is intended to go to making a scholarship fund in the name of Cody Stephens for Crosby High School Graduates.

Hall said, “It was a really good pig. We appreciate the fact that some of the other kids stepped up and got his animals exhibited, his pig, steer and his lamb. The Stephens family and the Fair board did not want this one aspect to eclipse the rest of the auction. The Stephens family has been great supporters of all aspects of the Crosby Fair & Rodeo and continue to support us. We wanted everybody to get a chance to benefit while making it possible to respond to the needs of the entire community grieving over the loss of a good participant. I feel like that everything worked out the way God intended and we accomplished that in my opinion.”

Scott Stephens said, “This year Cody made that game winch that about 50 of my friends went in together and bought it for about $8,000 and gave it to me. The big smoker pit was donated. The Cody Stephens Memorial Scholarship Fund is at Community Bank of Texas and donations are still being received to make it a permanent scholarship fund. We are trying to get it to a level where it is going to be perpetual. Right now it is somewhere between $67,000 and $70,000. We are going to set it up where it is a foundation either at the North Shore Rotary Club or its own foundation, I have not worked out all the details yet. I have to meet with some attorneys to get all the details worked out. The goal is that the income from that fund will net somewhere between $2,500 and $3, 000 scholarship. Today, I had a gentleman offer his place for a skeet shoot for next spring for another fund-raiser. We are calling it the “Go Big or Go Home Scholarship” so we are trying to build it and make it a lot bigger. It is not currently enough to do what we want to do with it”

Next week’s Star-Courier will display the auction buyers, the beneficiaries and the livestock sold.