Making the call

Stillwater auctioneer up for world title

Chris Day

The auctioneer’s call is in his blood.

Dustin Focht’s grandfather, Andrew, was an auctioneer in Kansas. His grandfather didn’t live long enough to see Dustin Focht take up the profession.

But Focht draws on the memories of his grandfather whether he’s selling cattle at an auction barn or yachts to Florida’s elite in West Palm Beach.

“Auctioneering is a neat occupation. I enjoy it,” Focht said.

He’s also good at it.

Focht has qualified for the Livestock Marketing Association’s 2010 World Livestock Association Auctioneer Championship from June 16-19 at the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City.

The Stillwater resident has been an auctioneer for 11 years, and has qualified for the world championship for 10 years. He highest finish is fourth at Billings, Mont.

Winning the championship at the Oklahoma City stockyards would be sweet, Focht said. He got his start there.

Focht was born and raised in Stillwater. He graduated from Stillwater High School. He spent a couple of years at Oklahoma State, but left in his junior year for an advertising job in Chicago.

“The big city was fun for a little while,” he said. Eventually, he said he felt fenced in by the tall buildings, and he didn’t like the long, cold winters. “It’s an urban setting, and somedays you don’t see the sun,” he said.

The days in advertising were great, but it was 1998, and time to return home.

Focht had always been intrigued by his grandfather’s life as an auctioneer. “I just never had much time to think about it,” he said.

He telephoned friend and Oklahoma National Stockyards auctioneer Greg Griffeth, telling him he wanted to be an auctioneer.

“Greg’s a great friend of mine,” he said. “I hadn’t sold anything before – not even a stick of gum.”

Soon, Griffeth and auctioneer Ralph Wade were teaching Focht the ins-and-outs of the auction. He had two days of training and started as an auctioneer on Monday.

“It was an indoctrination under fire,” he said.

And he loved it.

“I enjoy auctioneering. It’s a blast to be able to do it,” he said. “There’s something new every day. No two sales are alike.”

He works at cattle sales four days a week. He’s an auctioneer at Woodward on Tuesdays and Fridays. He’s in Cherokee on Wednesdays and Anthony, Kan., on Tuesdays.

“I love the livestock sales,” he said. “I grew up around these people.”

He sells more than livestock. He’s conducted yacht, airplane and muscle car auctions.

“They certainly are a different clientele,” he said. “You have to do things a little differently when your selling a yacht for $1.6 or $1.7 million or a Cessna for anywhere from $500,000 to $7 to $9 million.”

At those auctions, he has to explain more about the boat, car or plane. “You have to do it so they can fall in love with it and get on the same page,” he said.

Focht is branching out, too.

C.R. O’Hara and Focht recently formed Premier Auction & Real Estate Co., in Stillwater. It specializes in real estate sales and auctions. It opened three months ago and is averaging about $1.4 million in sales a month, he said.

“We didn’t anticipate it would start so quickly,” he said.

The company, which employs five, had anticipated a soft market early with a jump in Spring.

It offers traditional real estate sales as well as auctions.

The company walks each customer through the sale’s process step-by-step, and everything from developing the pricing to creating slick brochures and Web pages is done in-house, he said.

“It’s all about customer service,” he said.

When he’s not preparing for an auction, Focht owns 170 head of black Angus cattle on a farm around Stillwater. He and his wife, Julie, have a young daughter.

Julie was a professor at Oklahoma State teaching Web design and technical writing, he said. Now, she helps Focht by designing the company’s Web pages and sales fliers.

Livestock auctions are his passion, and his goal is to win the world championship.

“The biggie is in Oklahoma City. They’ve never had an Oklahoman win the world champion. I’d be the first one, and it would be great to win it where I got started,” he said.

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