Auction action
By Jennifer Colton - Argus Observer
Thursday, April 19, 2007 2:56 PM PDT
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| Rod Tegethoff, president of the New Plymouth Quick Response Unit, organizes donated items at the Payette County Fairgrounds Wednesday; the items will be sold during the unit’s 28th annual auction Saturday. The auction is the sole source of funding for the group which provides emergency medical assistance throughout the New Plymouth Fire District. |
New Plymouth - From Afghans to chandeliers, a chicken-plucker to zucchini, the New Plymouth Quick Response Unit 28th Annual Auction has something for everyone.
“I like to say we have everything from aardvarks to zebras,” Rod Tegethoff, New Plymouth Quick Response Unit president, said Wednesday. “If you want a chandelier, we have a chandelier ... or a snowmobile, a piano. There’s silverware, plates, bread boxes, stoves, desks, a knitting machine. Just hundreds and hundreds of items. If you don’t have it, we’ve got it.”
Auction action begins at 10 a.m. at the Payette County Fairgrounds, New Plymouth, with Rod Elson, Eddie Heath and Paul Adams serving as auctioneers.
The New Plymouth Kiwanis Club will serve hamburgers and hotdogs during the event, Tegethoff said, and tickets for three raffles — for a steer, a hog and an Afghan — will be available at 10 a.m. for $1.
“It’s turned into a real community event,” Tegethoff said. “Everything we have is donated. We’ll probably have six (trailers) literally covered. Everything we sell we sell by the flat.”
Other auction items include electronics, antiques, tools, books, toys, furniture, exercise equipment, a leather saddle, fencing and even a kitchen sink.
The auction is the sole means of support for the QRU, funding ambulance supplies, EMT training and vehicle maintenance.
The New Plymouth QRU provides emergency medical assistance within the New Plymouth Fire District — from Sand Hollow to Northwest Second Avenue toward Fruitland and from the Gem County line to the Snake River, Tegethoff said.
“We started out with an auction to get the unit going,” Tegethoff said, adding that the New Plymouth Quick Response Unit has operated for 27 years.
Everyone in the unit is volunteer, and services from the unit are provided free.
“We have to have a minimum of $7,000 to make ends meet for the year,” Tegethoff said. “We’ve been raising somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000.”
Tegethoff said the unit will try to sell all the donated items during the auction, which will probably last until 4 p.m., and the only variable will be the weather.
“I think out of the 28 years we’ve had the auction, we’ve had eight years without rain,” he said, laughing. “But we usually have better attendance when it rains. It keeps the guys out of the fields so they have to come to the auction.”
For more information or to donate items, call (208) 278-3191.
or (208) 278-3250.
