Buyers brave cold to find bargains at school auction

By Kayla Gahagan, Journal staff | Wednesday, October 15, 2008

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One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. That’s what Hermosa Elementary School principal Chip Franke was thinking during the Rapid City School District’s surplus auction Sunday morning.

“A couple of the teachers have their eyes on some of the chairs,” he said of his Custer School District staff. “It’s a great form of recycling.”

Franke was one of almost 200 people who bundled up for the morning’s cool temperatures and browsed row after row of tables, desks, chairs, toilets, globes, Christmas decorations and shelves outside at the district’s warehouse on Highway 79 South.

The surplus auction is held about once a year to get rid of district supplies that are no longer needed, warehouse supervisor Bob Doyle said. School staff sends the items to the warehouse throughout the year, and it is available for other schools or staff in the district for free until the auction, he said.

Teachers receive a letter before the auction, and they are welcome to pick up items they want before the bidding begins, district support services director Mike Kenton said.

“They can have one more pass-through and can pull it, and we’ll take it back to the school.”

The auction usually doesn’t fall on a Sunday, Kenton said, but it’s tough to schedule an auction in the fall. The day of the week and the weather didn’t seem to deter people this year; the district raised $20,000.

“We didn’t have a big crowd, but we had buyers,” he said.

The money will be deposited into whatever fund the supplies were purchased out of, Kenton said. Several Western Dakota Technical Institute trucks were auctioned this year, for example, and the money will go back into the district’s post-secondary fund. Most of it, however, will go into the district’s capital outlay fund, which is separate from the general fund.

Sunday morning, many of the items, including computers, copy machines, musical equipment and table saws, were clothed in a thin layer of snow and ice from the night before. Auctioneer Martin Jurisch warned that the district was no longer responsible for making sure any of the items were in working order.

Alan Ponto of Rapid City wasn’t worried about anything working. He was eyeing the same chairs as Franke’s staff. He works for Just Jymnastics, which is starting an after-school program and looking for kids’ tables and chairs.

“If you buy them brand new, you can break the bank,” he said.

Ponto visited the warehouse earlier in the week to see what would be up for auction. Last year, he came to the auction and left with something for himself — an old science table that is now used as a work bench in his garage.

Nancy Bolmer and her husband, Mario, of Rapid City have been to the auction twice before, mostly out of curiosity.

“We usually come down because there’s interesting things to look at,” she said, such as the supply of old band uniforms. They were for sale, along with an oversized trophy, several toilets, a water heater, a 12-foot grease board and an ice machine.

Successful bidders must pick up their items before Tuesday at 4 p.m., or the items will be hauled to the dump with the rest of the unsold objects.

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com