What This 10-Year-Old Does Behind the Mic at the Stockyards Is Just Simply Awesome

When you pay a visit to the Blue Earth Stockyards on Fridays, it's almost impossible to miss one particular auctioneer rattling off bids for cows in that familiar rapid-fire style.

Image source: KARE-TV

Partly because he's good at it — but also because Cash Owens is all of 10 years old.

Image source: KARE-TV

The sight of the fifth-grader on the mic has become quite the drawing card for the Minnesota operation.

"I probably buy more hay than what I need just to watch him sell," Lloyd Olson told KARE-TV in the Twin Cities.

To hear his family explain it, you'd think Cash was destined for the gig.

"He likes to talk a lot more than us," older brother Cole told the station; younger brother Chase concluded: "He was just born like that."

Well, not exactly.

You might say Cash's fast-talking feats are even more remarkable given that Mayo Clinic doctors had to resuscitate him a whopping 12 times as infant before putting him on a respirator.

Image source: KARE-TV

Cash was born with intestines that hadn't properly developed, and he spent two months in the hospital recovering from surgery, KARE said.

But now the stockyards are treated to a full-on Cash fest.

"I just think he enjoys life more," Dan, his father, told the station. "I think he appreciates it because he was close to not having one."

"When he gets up there he just gets in his element," Dan added. "It's pretty amazing to see."

Cash's talent first surfaced during a drive home from Montana. In the vehicle along with Cash was his dad — and a family friend who's a full-time auctioneer.

"So for 795 miles home, every fence post and rock and pickup and cow and everything else that they saw got sold," Dan told KARE with a laugh. "I was so ready to get out of that pickup."

Image source: KARE-TV

Cash kept practicing — even in the shower, which has led to sessions under the nozzle lasting up to 30 minutes.

Finally his mom and dad bought the Blue Earth stockyards in 2014, and you already know what task Cash was handed.

Image source: KARE-TV

"I just know as a mom that there's something there," Leah Owens told KARE.

Image source: KARE-TV

There's a ways to go before he'll be old enough — 18 — to compete in auctioneering competitions, but Cash doesn't appear bothered by that.

His mouth on high speed is just part of who he is.

"Could never stop," Cash told KARE. "I just wanted to talk all the time."

—

Follow Dave Urbanski (@DaveVUrbanski) on Twitter