Although it did not raise as much as it did a year ago, organizers for the Lyle Area Cancer Auction were “more than happy” with its result, at $175,000, according to one of the co-chairs, Larry Ricke.

Last year, volunteers and supporters raised more than $200,000, but this might be the real story: This year’s numbers raised the auction’s 39-year total to $2,824,000. The auction was held Friday and Saturday at the Lyle American Legion and adjacent city building.

“So, how about in our 40th year next year, we hit the $3 million dollar mark?” Ricke said. “Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

Ricke said the Friday night crowd was slimmer than usual. He thinks the cold and flu had their way with the numbers.

“I heard from a lot of people that they would have loved to come, but their families or friends were sick with the flu. We heard that a lot,” Ricke said.

However, he said, “we still raised a total in the six digits — and that’s a successful event even though our dollars were down. We heard that Geneva (that has a fundraiser the same weekend) was down on their Friday crowd, too.”

However, those who were there Friday were full of support and lots and lots of energy.

Helping out the cause for the seventh year was Chrissy Nelson, who has been a volunteer since the sixth grade. Today, she is a University of Minnesota mechanical engineering student.

She wouldn’t have missed the auction, no matter what, she said.

“Truly, it gets better every year,” she said.

She surveyed the donations, that ranged from bean bag boards painted with eagles, gift baskets and model cars, to 10 pounds of potatoes (and 5 pounds of onions), Piggy Blues gift certificates, and a six pack of beer that comes back every year, unopened, to be sold again.

But more than what was being sold, it was the memory that often came an item. One gentleman donated a cookie jar shaped like a slot machine to the auction, since his later mother, who died of cancer, loved to gamble. His family also donated $100.

It was not unusual to see an item purchased – often for 10 times more than the item was probably worth — and then immediately donated back to the auction so it could be sold again.
That happened with the slot machine, that brought in $100 in the first round, and $85 in the second.

You could never guess what might be coming next — the “two pizzas and Fireball T-shirt,” that sold for $30; or “a pie and a hat” that sold for $45. A squirrel feeder brought in $35;  “Dolly Hovland’s dish towels” sold for $90.

“A lot of things are given in humor,” said Gary Ziegler, one of the board members and longtime supporter of the auction. “But you can’t pick out one item over another as being better than another; they’re all given to honor others, who suffer from cancer.

“You just can’t do that — it would be like picking a star out of the sky.”