Crowds Pack Ham Wilson Arena for 54th Annual Auburn University Bull Test Sale
	
Auburn, Jan 22, 2004 --- For the first time in the 10 years that she has worked with the Auburn 
University Bull Test Sale, Dr. Lisa Kriese-Anderson saw a packed Ham Wilson Arena for the sale.
	
Kriese-Anderson, an animal scientist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, said the 
scene validated what she knows about Alabama cattle.
	
“Alabama beef producers are raising top-quality cattle,” she said.  “That arena full of buyers is 
evidence that others understand the quality of animals being produced in the state.  They are 
choosing to buy Alabama bulls because of their quality.  They are not going out of state to other 
bull sales.
	
“Bulls in this sale are genetically in the top 20 percent or higher of their respective breeds.”
	
Kriese-Anderson said producers who had consigned bulls to the test and sale were excited by the 
number of buyers as well.
	
“Consigning producers were pleased with the number of buyers as well as sale prices,” she said.  
“It was an upbeat day given the recent downturn in beef prices.”
	
Seventy-one bulls sold at the recent sale for an average price of almost $1,900.  The highest 
selling bull was an Angus consigned by J. John Summerford of Summerford Cattle Co. in Webb 
that sold for $4,050 to Tom Corcoran of Corcoran Farms in Eufaula. 
	
The total gross for the sale was $134,600. Sixty-three bulls were sold to Alabama buyers with 
eight bought by buyers from Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.
	
The Auburn University Bull Test, begun in 1951, is the oldest continuous performance bull test in 
the United States.  Extension specialists have supervised the test since the early 1980s.