A women’s group from Fort Worth paid the record-tying auction price of $240,000 for the top Stock Show steer, and Mayor Betsy Price made the winning bid. In a press conference following the sale, Price made sure to emphasize that “No public money was spent.” The Stock Show’s grand champion steer, Rocco, a European crossbred, was shown by Mikala Grady.
Grady, 15 years old from Grandview, Texas, showed the steer while the bidding soared, finally ending with the Women Steering Business making the winning bid. Further to her press conference comments, the mayor identified that the more than 170 members of the group had long been planning this purchase, citing, “We said five years ago, ‘In five years we are going to buy the grand champion, if it is a woman.’ And this year it was, so we made good on our promise.” In an empowering statement, Mayor Price noted, “We want to promote everybody. But this is particularly for these gals [who are showing] to see women come together and do something like this.”