Northern Alumni Auction set to sell big items

The Northern Alumni Foundation Chinese Auction will be Saturday and will offer a wide variety of items for attendees to bid upon.

Jim Bennett, executive director of the Alumni Foundation at Montana State University-Northern, said proceeds fund scholarships given out by the foundation every year.

The auction is 6 p.m. Saturday at the Student Union Building, and tickets will be $20. Tickets will be available at the door, but they are on sale through the university.

"We usually make about $10,000 for student support," Bennett said.

There will be a live auction, silent auction and Chinese auction and also a taco cart dinner and a no-host bar.

A Chinese auction works similarly to a live auction, except to bid, the bidder has to hand a dollar to a person with a numbered sign. The person holds the sign up until the auctioneer calls the number, after which they lower the sign again. The bidder gives the sign holder another dollar – the sign goes back up. The last sign standing gets the auction item, but any money given to a sign-holder goes to the auction.

Some of the bigger items up for bid at the live auction are a stay in a condo in Whitefish with lift tickets to Big Mountain, a Traeger Wood Pellet Grill and a hunting rifle.

"For the silent auction and the Chinese auction, we've been going around getting gifts from local businesses and community members as well," Bennett said. "We have some really cool stuff."

Many of the items are from surrounding towns including Chinook, Rudyard, Big Sandy, Fort Benton, Hingham and Gildford.

"It's been really great to see all the support from the different businesses around the community because a lot of them had just donated to help with the community barbecue and they have been assisting the college with athletics and a variety of different places so to see their support for the auction is really cool," Bennett said. "It's really nice to see."

He said they usually see around 200 to 250 people show up for the auction, and they hope to see that many again.

He said that the foundation wants to get as much money as possible to give to Northern students, but people walk away with great deals from the auction every year.

"After the weekend we had last weekend, it's just really cool to see all the support that people have for the college and I think it's great to go into this weekend with that sort of attitude," Bennett said.