Cleveland Advocate - News
CCA auction raises funds for conservation and education
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| Bill Kinney, CCA’s STAR Tournament director, discusses how much money CCA has spent on conservation efforts in the past year. Kinney has been with CCA for 20 years and has been involved in the STAR tournament 19 of those years. |
By ALEX WUKMAN
Ed Philips’ voice is hypnotizing. He stands in front of the room at the Coastal Conservation Association’s (CCA) State of Texas Angler Rodeo (STAR) Tournament Awards Banquet, auctioning off a John Dearman print called “Above the Fray.”
The catalog describes the picture as “depicting a marlin leaping out of the deep blue” and Philips assures everyone in attendance it is museum quality.
A 5’9”, 119 lb. blonde with dental hygienist white teeth, year-round-tan, red shirt and blue jeans sashays down the center aisle displaying her might-be-a-model good looks and Dearman’s limited edition print.
Philips raps twice on the podium, raises his thin arm past his grandfatherly face, picks $325 as his starting price and begins. His cadence is a machine-gun staccato and as the syllables crash into each other, they turn phrases and numbers into liturgical chants.
Philips’ patter starts out slow. His three assistants Doug Hall, Gary “Strawberry” Clifton and Dixon Davis prowl the crowd scanning for raised hands or programs. When a program is raised, Hall, Clifton or Davis signal back to Philips.
Each one reacts differently to Philips’ recognition of the bid. Davis coolly continues scanning the crowd, Clifton gives a small celebratory gesture and Hall pumps his arm across his body and hoots. As they explain later, it’s all part of the working the crowd.
“It’s all part of knowing where the money is and taking care of the crowd,” said Hall. He went on to say that the four of them have been working auctions for 25 years and after having worked cattle and car auctions they gravitated to the charity and non-profit circuit.
“Car and cattle auctions are all about getting the price up,” said Hall. “Here it’s about making the crowd feel good.”
Hall, Clifton and Davis describe themselves as three friends who “just got into” the auction business.
Philips, on the other hand, studied and worked to master the skill of entertainingly asking a crowd to open their wallets.
“I went to school and then spent two years practicing. It takes awhile to get it right,” said Philips.
Getting it right entails turning the phrase, “$675 all in? All done?,” into one word with a lilting rise on the last syllable. A successful auction requires Philips to recognize the energy of the crowd and work the tables with the big spenders.
One of the biggest spenders at the CCA banquet was Longhorn Dental and Philips chided, ribbed and teased them throughout the 30-lot auction.
“This is a Longhorn Dental package,” he said, describing a three-day dove hunting tour to Argentina for four.
The bidding for the Argentina trip started at $2,000. The first bid was from a tan, dark-haired man in his early 30’s sitting at the Ricky Williams table. He was dressed, like so many others were, in boating casual — bright colored Guidewear shirts with caped back and mesh liner to prevent overheating, cargo shorts, flip-flops, anti-glare sunglasses with a floating neck strap and baseball cap.
Someone sitting at the Longhorn Dental table started bidding as well; he was wearing a yellow polo shirt, blue jeans and Roper style boots. The price quickly jumped from $2,000 to $3,000; then a person off to the right side of the stage began bidding.
“We got three working, three working,” said Philips, as Hall, Davis and Clifton paced up and down the pink and purple paisley on grey background carpet. A fourth bidder jumped in over to the left and Philips’ patter picked up tempo.
“Three-twenty-five, three-twenty-five, four working, four working, can I get three-and-a-half, three-and-a-half,” said Philips, dropping zeroes off the prices as he went. As soon as the words “three-and-a-half” were out of his mouth, a blue program went up at the Ricky Williams table; then another at Longhorn Dental.
As the prices rose through the three thousands, and into the fours, everyone but the Longhorn Dental and Ricky Williams representatives dropped out. Finally when the price reached $4,400, the Ricky Williams rep did something unexpected — he signaled for $5,000.
The room went quiet.
“Five thousand,” said Philips as he walked over to consult with the CCA officials.
After a few moments of deliberation, he came back and said, “CCA is being real generous tonight. Since you bid at $4,400 and you bid at $5,000, they’ll willing to offer both of you one at $4,400.” Both the Ricky Williams and Longhorn Dental representatives agreed.
Since the focus was not on getting the prices up as high as possible, dual winners were a common sight throughout the evening.
At the end of the night, the live auction alone raised over $35,000. STAR tournament director Bill Kinney explained that the funds that are raised through the auction and tournament registration are reinvested into the event.
“This is a zero-sum event for us,” said Kinney. “We don’t make a dime on it. We put everything back into it.”
Kinney explained that the majority of the funds raised through the tournament registration, live and silent auctions are used to fund the scholarships that CCA gives away.
In the 19 years that CCA has been holding the STAR tournament, they have given away $3,475,000 in scholarships. The scholarships that CCA gives away are in the tens of thousands of dollars.
“These are the largest scholarships in the country. If there are any larger I don’t know of it,” said Kinney as he prepared to announce the winners of the StarKids $50,000 scholarship.
Kinney explained that the CCA board is fully aware of the uniqueness of their scholarship.
“When we first started decided to do this, the board had a choice. They could have given away lots of $500 or $1,000 scholarships, but they wanted to give away real money,” said Kinney.
The nine scholarships awarded each year include three $50,000 scholarships and six $20,000 scholarships.
Aside from handing out over $200,000 a year in college scholarships, CCA spends the majority of its money on conservation efforts.
As the assembled CCA members stood in line waiting to get their sausage, brisket, coleslaw and potato salad from the Goode Company Bar-be-Que table, Kinney told them how much money has been spent in the last year for conservation efforts.
He started to list off some of the projects that CCA has funded before cutting himself off and saying “$2.1 million of your dollars has gone into Texas coastal resources.”
Kinney said that CCA has its hands in both the legislative and practical conservation efforts.
“We have a few lobbyists in Austin and Washington working to push a conservation agenda,” he said. He went on to say that one of CCA’s biggest successes concerned Red Fish.
“We were able to get Red Fish reclassified as a game fish; this means that it can only be caught for recreational purposes,” said Kinney.
Kinney stayed on CCA’s Red Fish initiative, feeling that it provided a perfect example of the organization’s approach to conservation.
“We also worked out a deal with Texas Parks and Wildlife. We told them that we’ll pay for a Red Fish hatchery if they’ll provide the staff. We said that if they provided the biologists, we’d supply the funds,” he said.
Kinney expressed how proud CCA is with the Red Fish hatchery and explained that Blackened Red Fish induced commercial over-fishing, thus threatening the species.
“You’d have spotter planes flying out looking for schools. They’d spot them and radio back to a fish farm that would cruise out and catch 200,000-300,000 fish. They’d eliminate a whole fishery,” said Kinney.
Kinney went on to say that the CCA/Texas Parks and Wildlife Division (TPWD) Red Fish hatchery now releases over 100,000 fish a year back into the wild.
“Parks and Wildlife has trucks driving all 600 miles of the Texas coast loaded with Red Fish,” he said.
Because of those efforts, the Red Fish population has successfully rebounded.
“When Parks and Wildlife did their latest gill survey, they said that Red Fish had been higher than, well since 1976, when they started doing the study,” said Kinney.
The catalog describes the picture as “depicting a marlin leaping out of the deep blue” and Philips assures everyone in attendance it is museum quality.
A 5’9”, 119 lb. blonde with dental hygienist white teeth, year-round-tan, red shirt and blue jeans sashays down the center aisle displaying her might-be-a-model good looks and Dearman’s limited edition print.
Philips raps twice on the podium, raises his thin arm past his grandfatherly face, picks $325 as his starting price and begins. His cadence is a machine-gun staccato and as the syllables crash into each other, they turn phrases and numbers into liturgical chants.
Philips’ patter starts out slow. His three assistants Doug Hall, Gary “Strawberry” Clifton and Dixon Davis prowl the crowd scanning for raised hands or programs. When a program is raised, Hall, Clifton or Davis signal back to Philips.
Each one reacts differently to Philips’ recognition of the bid. Davis coolly continues scanning the crowd, Clifton gives a small celebratory gesture and Hall pumps his arm across his body and hoots. As they explain later, it’s all part of the working the crowd.
“It’s all part of knowing where the money is and taking care of the crowd,” said Hall. He went on to say that the four of them have been working auctions for 25 years and after having worked cattle and car auctions they gravitated to the charity and non-profit circuit.
“Car and cattle auctions are all about getting the price up,” said Hall. “Here it’s about making the crowd feel good.”
Hall, Clifton and Davis describe themselves as three friends who “just got into” the auction business.
Philips, on the other hand, studied and worked to master the skill of entertainingly asking a crowd to open their wallets.
“I went to school and then spent two years practicing. It takes awhile to get it right,” said Philips.
Getting it right entails turning the phrase, “$675 all in? All done?,” into one word with a lilting rise on the last syllable. A successful auction requires Philips to recognize the energy of the crowd and work the tables with the big spenders.
One of the biggest spenders at the CCA banquet was Longhorn Dental and Philips chided, ribbed and teased them throughout the 30-lot auction.
“This is a Longhorn Dental package,” he said, describing a three-day dove hunting tour to Argentina for four.
The bidding for the Argentina trip started at $2,000. The first bid was from a tan, dark-haired man in his early 30’s sitting at the Ricky Williams table. He was dressed, like so many others were, in boating casual — bright colored Guidewear shirts with caped back and mesh liner to prevent overheating, cargo shorts, flip-flops, anti-glare sunglasses with a floating neck strap and baseball cap.
Someone sitting at the Longhorn Dental table started bidding as well; he was wearing a yellow polo shirt, blue jeans and Roper style boots. The price quickly jumped from $2,000 to $3,000; then a person off to the right side of the stage began bidding.
“We got three working, three working,” said Philips, as Hall, Davis and Clifton paced up and down the pink and purple paisley on grey background carpet. A fourth bidder jumped in over to the left and Philips’ patter picked up tempo.
“Three-twenty-five, three-twenty-five, four working, four working, can I get three-and-a-half, three-and-a-half,” said Philips, dropping zeroes off the prices as he went. As soon as the words “three-and-a-half” were out of his mouth, a blue program went up at the Ricky Williams table; then another at Longhorn Dental.
As the prices rose through the three thousands, and into the fours, everyone but the Longhorn Dental and Ricky Williams representatives dropped out. Finally when the price reached $4,400, the Ricky Williams rep did something unexpected — he signaled for $5,000.
The room went quiet.
“Five thousand,” said Philips as he walked over to consult with the CCA officials.
After a few moments of deliberation, he came back and said, “CCA is being real generous tonight. Since you bid at $4,400 and you bid at $5,000, they’ll willing to offer both of you one at $4,400.” Both the Ricky Williams and Longhorn Dental representatives agreed.
Since the focus was not on getting the prices up as high as possible, dual winners were a common sight throughout the evening.
At the end of the night, the live auction alone raised over $35,000. STAR tournament director Bill Kinney explained that the funds that are raised through the auction and tournament registration are reinvested into the event.
“This is a zero-sum event for us,” said Kinney. “We don’t make a dime on it. We put everything back into it.”
Kinney explained that the majority of the funds raised through the tournament registration, live and silent auctions are used to fund the scholarships that CCA gives away.
In the 19 years that CCA has been holding the STAR tournament, they have given away $3,475,000 in scholarships. The scholarships that CCA gives away are in the tens of thousands of dollars.
“These are the largest scholarships in the country. If there are any larger I don’t know of it,” said Kinney as he prepared to announce the winners of the StarKids $50,000 scholarship.
Kinney explained that the CCA board is fully aware of the uniqueness of their scholarship.
“When we first started decided to do this, the board had a choice. They could have given away lots of $500 or $1,000 scholarships, but they wanted to give away real money,” said Kinney.
The nine scholarships awarded each year include three $50,000 scholarships and six $20,000 scholarships.
Aside from handing out over $200,000 a year in college scholarships, CCA spends the majority of its money on conservation efforts.
As the assembled CCA members stood in line waiting to get their sausage, brisket, coleslaw and potato salad from the Goode Company Bar-be-Que table, Kinney told them how much money has been spent in the last year for conservation efforts.
He started to list off some of the projects that CCA has funded before cutting himself off and saying “$2.1 million of your dollars has gone into Texas coastal resources.”
Kinney said that CCA has its hands in both the legislative and practical conservation efforts.
“We have a few lobbyists in Austin and Washington working to push a conservation agenda,” he said. He went on to say that one of CCA’s biggest successes concerned Red Fish.
“We were able to get Red Fish reclassified as a game fish; this means that it can only be caught for recreational purposes,” said Kinney.
Kinney stayed on CCA’s Red Fish initiative, feeling that it provided a perfect example of the organization’s approach to conservation.
“We also worked out a deal with Texas Parks and Wildlife. We told them that we’ll pay for a Red Fish hatchery if they’ll provide the staff. We said that if they provided the biologists, we’d supply the funds,” he said.
Kinney expressed how proud CCA is with the Red Fish hatchery and explained that Blackened Red Fish induced commercial over-fishing, thus threatening the species.
“You’d have spotter planes flying out looking for schools. They’d spot them and radio back to a fish farm that would cruise out and catch 200,000-300,000 fish. They’d eliminate a whole fishery,” said Kinney.
Kinney went on to say that the CCA/Texas Parks and Wildlife Division (TPWD) Red Fish hatchery now releases over 100,000 fish a year back into the wild.
“Parks and Wildlife has trucks driving all 600 miles of the Texas coast loaded with Red Fish,” he said.
Because of those efforts, the Red Fish population has successfully rebounded.
“When Parks and Wildlife did their latest gill survey, they said that Red Fish had been higher than, well since 1976, when they started doing the study,” said Kinney.
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