PUEBLO ? A battle of the titans took place Tuesday at the Colorado State Fair. Who would win the bidding wars?

Well, not really, but everybody had a good time.

Tuesday was the Junior Livestock Sale at the state fair in Pueblo. Elected officials from the Front Range, Gov. Jared Polis, and other government officials and business people made the trek down, led by a law enforcement escort of six vehicles.

The Denver Rustlers boasted the largest contingent, of around 150. The Pikes Peak Posse, which included Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, all of the El Paso County commissioners, most of the Colorado Springs City Council, and El Paso County members of the general assembly, numbered about half of that. 

Gov. Jared Polis was on hand, riding shotgun in the lead bus to the fairgrounds.

Once the five buses arrived on the fairgrounds, the game was afoot. 

The two groups toured the livestock barns to meet the young people whose animals would come up for auction later that afternoon. They didn’t know what the were in for. Many of the exhibitors had printed brochures that advertised their animals and made a strong pitch to anyone who walked by.

It’s all for a good cause: The proceeds from the auction help the exhibitors pay for college. The auction has raised $10 million in its 40-year history.

Those who purchase animals generally don’t get to keep them unless they’re prepared to send the livestock to a processor. Last year’s auction raised nearly $500,000, Suthers noted. 

Chloe Crider of Eaton has raised goats, chickens and lambs for 13 years, and one of her lambs was up for auction on Tuesday. She said she has developed a new color standard for one of her chickens, and it’s now being bred by others. Crider hopes to study athletic training at Kansas State. The Pikes Peak Posse bought her third-place blackface lamb. 

It was the Rustlers’ night, given their much larger purse ($100,000) for buying animals. They started off buying the Reserve Grand Champion steer, at $25,000, with Larry Mizel of Richmond Homes and Jake Jabs of American Furniture Warehouse as the primary funders. The steer is owned by Cal Sidwell of Gill in Weld County.

They also took the Reserve Grand Champion turkey, a 28.5 pound gobbler raised by Colton Steinke of Eaton, in Weld County. The winning bidders were Landon Gates and Brock Herzberg, both of the lobbying firm Capitol Focus. Gates told Colorado Politics he’s known the Steinke family for many years and was happy to bid for the turkey. The Reserve Grand Champion lamb, shown by Allyson Sandy of Loveland, went for $9,000 and was purchased by R.D. Sewald and Josh Hanfling of Sewald-Hanfling Public Affairs.

The posse made the best use of its purse, some $20,000, using much of it to buy animals raised by El Paso County youth. That included a second place medium-weight goat shown by Katelyn Robinson of Colorado Springs, and a second-place steer owned by Wyatt Chamblin of Peyton.

Among the more colorful bidders of the day: the Fair Ladies, a group of local women whose garb – high heels and fancy dresses – is unusual for the setting of a livestock auction. The group was founded almost 30 years ago by the late Diane Hansen, who died of breast cancer. The ladies continue in her name. 

The auction on Tuesday resulted in the sale of 146 animals: steers, lambs, goats, rabbits, chickens and hogs. The top auction was for the Grand Champion steer, shown by Shae Stone of Eaton and purchased by the Sam Brown family of Pueblo for $66,000; the Browns traditionally buy the grand champion steer and have done so for at least the past seven years.

But there’s a touch of sadness to the event, too. Chuck Line, the deputy city manager for Glendale, was part of a group of four that bought a lamb. He said he shook hands with the girl who exhibited the lamb, and she was crying –  perhaps tears of joy, but also tears for walking away from an animal she had raised from its early days.