The 117th Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo has ended with the big winners being the kids not the athletes. As the last day began at Will Rogers Coliseum it seemed as if the over half million dollar prize money going to the contestants in the rodeo was hot topic. But it was to be out shined.
It started with Lunchbox – the Grand Champion steer – who brought at auction a whopping $205,000.00 to owner and handler Stock Martin. The winning bid was placed by the Happy Davis Foundation. Next up was the Reserve Grand Champion and it went for $105,000.00. Then the Champion Burro went for $55,000.00. The Champion Goat also got $55,000.00 as did the Champion Ram.
Before all of the bidding was done the total amount of money that went to the kids and their scholarship program was Three Million, One Hundred Twenty Six Thousand, One Hundred and Eight dollars ($3,126,108.00)!
The 7-month-old black European crossbred steer named Lunchbox was named grand champion at the Fort Worth Stock Show Friday. And Stock Martin, the 12-year-old boy from Hereford who showed Lunchbox, is no stranger to the winner’s circle, having won reserve grand champion steer at the Stock Show last year and grand champion steer at the State Fair of Texas in the fall.
"It's so exciting I can’t explain it," Stock said, as he answered questions from the news media after his big win, exchanging high fives and big smiles with family members and a tearful hug with his mother, Sherri Martin. "We knew we had a good one when he was born."
Lunchbox brought $205,000.00 that will be funneled into Stock’s college savings and toward buying more cattle.
A 1,328-pound-European crossbred won last year's Grand Champion title. Spider Monkey, shown by 18-year-old Cuatro Schauer of Beeville, was purchased for $230,000 - the highest price paid for the top steer in the event's 116-year history.
Maybe Lunchbox was meant to be the winning Grand Champion. After all the owner’s name was Stock at the Fort Worth Stock Show! But the judge didn’t know that.
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