World Champion Livestock Auctioneer comes to Lynchburg

When he’s working, Matt Lowery’s voice has the urgency of a mountain stream at high water, the cadence of a gospel preacher, the frenetic pace of a rapper on Red Bull.

As for what he’s actually saying, you’d have to be a cattle buyer or seller to comprehend and appreciate it.

Like the veteran farmer who listened to Lowery working the crowd at the Lynchburg Livestock Market on Monday afternoon, turned to the man next to him and drawled: “Boy can sure ring ’em off, can’t he?”

“Yup,” replied the other.

They say, in fact, that Matt Lowery can move more cattle than any auctioneer in the world — “they” being the judges who voted him World Champion Livestock Auctioneer last year in Werthing, S.D.

“It was always a personal goal of mine,” Lowery said Monday.

That seems obvious. Lowery entered nine times before he finally won, a tribute to his perseverance.

“I learned a little bit from each one,” he said. “Finished second twice before it finally happened.”

Lowery is one of those rare people who has achieved success in something he always wanted to do.

“When I was growing up in Nebraska,” he said, “I used to play auctioneer, starting at about age 3.”

Certainly, it would be hard to imagine a better representative of his profession. Lowery is young, boyishly good-looking, personable, and one of those people who can wear a cowboy hat well. He and his daughter do 4-H projects together, and he thinks Nebraska is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

“I live in Burwell, which is up in the rolling hills in the northern part of the state,” he said. “No trees, no crops. Just cows.”

He has lots of pictures of his family’s longhorn herd on his iPhone, along with the mule deer buck his 10-year-old daughter shot last hunting season.

“I’m really proud of her,” he said. “You can tell.”

Lowery was in Lynchburg because part of his duties as world auctioneering champion is to attend sales in 25 different places during his “reign.” Those stops are drawn out of a hat, he said.

“We’re really excited to have him,” said Lynchburg Livestock Market Vice President Duane Gilliam.

By comparison, it would be like Celine Dion coming to town to sing the lead in an Academy of Fine Arts musical.

Monday’s auction of more than 2,000 head of cattle (along with a sprinkling of sheep, goats and pigs) took place in a small corner of the sprawling livestock market on U.S. 29 South.

More than anything else, it resembled a play. There was a small amphitheater, perhaps a dozen rows of theater seats bolted onto plywood bleachers, where the buyers and observers sat. Their attention was focused on a small, stage-like area with doors at either end. A couple of young men acted as “stagehands,” ushering the animals in and out one or two at a time, aided by long poles with plastic appendages that looked like giant fly swatters. Backstage, the air was thick with agricultural aromas and vibrating with the loud complaints of hundreds of cattle.

Hovering just above the auction floor was a long bench where Lowery, regular Lynchburg Livestock Auctioneer Daniel Lanier and the market clerk sat.

“If you want something,” Lowery told the crowd, “get your hands in the air, and I guarantee I’ll find you.”

He was prepared to keep delivering his melodic chant, accompanied by various hand gestures, for the next six or seven hours.

“By the end of a day, I’m mentally whipped,” he said. “You have to really concentrate.”

With good reason. Those who “ring up” livestock must not only be aware of the prevailing price per pound of different types of edible domestic animals, but the price in that particular venue.

“My job is to sell cattle,” Lowery said, “so I’ll see how things are going for a little while before I feel comfortable picking a place to start the bidding. If it’s slow, I might start it a little lower.”

Despite getting the opportunity to travel the country to exciting places like, well, Lynchburg, Lowery insists that, “I’m still just a regular guy from Nebraska. I put my boots on one at a time.”