Hall of Fame bids welcome to auctioneers

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — The unique paths of two auctioneers converged when they received the Illinois State Auctioneers Association’s highest honor.

Bill Houchens and Joe Orwig were inducted into the ISAA Hall of Fame on Feb. 9 during the organization’s annual conference and trade show.

Houchens’ road toward being auctioneer began when he was 48 years old.

“My wife and I have always been antique dealers. That’s kind of how we met and that was 40-some years ago. We did a lot of antiquing, went to a lot of auctions, and we bought and we sold. So, we were in the auction industry only on the other part of it. We were consigners and we bought and sold all over the country,” Houchens said.

“When I became an auctioneer, I was fortunate that I knew a lot of auctioneers, so it helped me get along a little faster because I was always friends with the auctioneers. Since they knew I was a ringman and I’d already done all of that, it was easy for me to get a lot of practice in.”

Among Houchens’ favorite aspects of the business was his experience working with long-time auctioneers beginning as a 48-year-old “rookie.”

“For me, because I became an auctioneer later in life, was that I knew all the older auctioneers, and I was able to work with them in the truck or out of the truck. I got to help a lot of them which in my mind was like becoming a singer and then all of a sudden you get to sing with the people that you like. It was a good life,” he said.

While taking the step towards auction school, Houchens purchased an auction facility in Palmyra from a retiring auctioneer to mark the beginning of Houchens Auction Service and hosted auctions there for 20-some years.

“We had weekly sales for a while and then I did Saturday night sales. The biggest sale of the year was always New Year’s Eve. For some reason, they just needed a place to go and it turned out to be huge. It was one of the biggest sales of the year every year,” Houchens said.

His specialty was primarily household antiques, utilizing his first-hand experience outside the auction business to provide expertise.

“Through the years, the antique furnitures kind of died. We’ve done some big sales with antiques. We did about three years of some pretty good size sales, and we did two big antique sales a year. Those sales ranged from $300,000 to $400,000 and we usually had a two-day sale. The last day would last about 14 hours and the Friday night before was about seven or eight hours. We moved a lot of merchandise,” he said.

Houchens has been active member of ISAA for many years, rising through the officers’ ranks as board member to vice president to president in 2015, and he was a member of the membership committee throughout his leadership roles.

“It was a great experience. We had 10 districts in Illinois back then. When I took over District 5, the first meeting I ever had was me and the president of the organization. By the time I got done 10 years later, there was 25 to 30 people showing up for the district meeting,” he said.

“That’s where I started the continuing education with others’ help. The most I ever had for the continuing education sessions was 65 auctioneers which a lot of times is larger than our annual conference. They all like the continuing education. They have to do that, so they’ll show up for that.”

He sees numerous benefits as an ISAA member, including opportunities to help other auctioneers across the state, receiving help and sharing knowledge through interactions with others in the business.

Houchens was surprised to receive the organization’s highest honor.

“It’s great. I didn’t realize I was even nominated for the Hall of Fame. It’s a good feeling to know that with all my hard work, somebody else saw it and appreciated what I have done for the association,” he said.

“That’s what the Hall of Fame is all about, what you do for the association and not so much what you do in your auction business. It’s all about the association.”

Orwig Auction

Orwig, of Orwig Auction and Appraisal, Toulon, was fresh out of high school when his uncle urged him to become an auctioneer.

“I graduated from high school in 1982. My uncle was working at Case IH in the Quad Cities and he gets laid off. He says, ‘you’re going to auction school,’ because he always wanted to, and so he said we’re going to auction school,” Orwig recalled.

“I’d never been to many auctions. It was just kind of go with your dad or go with somebody, but it was never with the intent that I really liked it and it was really cool. I’d never been around it that much, so I said, OK.

“I went to auction school and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Orwig attended a two-week auction school in North Carolina without his uncle.

“So, I stay with it. My uncle gets called back to work and he never does an auction,” Orwig grinned. “It was cool. I met a lot of neat people out there. I got back and went to college, got married and had kids.”

Orwig’s business offers a wide range of auctions from estates to real estate to antiques and everything in between.

He built an auction facility in Toulon in 2016.

“We do all kinds of fun stuff there. We’re a small community, so it’s kind of a gathering place there. We do a lot of stuff there. We do a lot of events for the communities, benefits and every little thing comes through there. So, we got a chance to get people through our doors just about all of the time,” he said.

With over four decades of auctions, Orwig has witnessed countless changes. Back in the day, sale bills were distributed, posted in area businesses and published in the newspaper.

“Everything is now online and through social media. There’s good and bad in it. The people, and I’m one of them, I love a newspaper. There’s more you can do with social media, more pictures, more content, more things. So, there’s a place for it,” Orwig said.

“People’s attention spans are way different. Auctions used to be the event, the social event. They’d go spend all day, the church ladies would make pies and chicken and noodles. Now it’s more of a Walmart mentality. The want to walk in, buy what they want, then want to leave. It’s not quite as social as it used to be.”

Auctioneering is all about the people and Orwig enjoys observing during his bid-calling.

“My favorite part, you’ll have a 20-some-year-old lady, dressed to the nines, and you’ll have an old man in a pair of coveralls right next to her and they bid on the same thing,” he said.

“You are wondering what the different reasons are for buying it. She may be buying it for the utility of it and he may be buying it for the sentimentality of it. So, you never know and it’s always that thing that really gets me.

“The other thing is you can tell a lot about people when they talk about their kids or when you’re dealing with their money. As soon as you hit those two things, politics is a third, but when you talk kids or money you’ll find out about people really fast.”

Orwig served as ISAA president in 2011 and 2012, as well as holding other offices along the way. He sees multiple benefits of being a part of the organization.

“I think it’s a sense of you’re not alone. You’ve got people you can bounce things off of. They tell you about the same things that are going on. We were in a session this morning with gentleman from Colorado. The same things are going on there as are going on here,” he said.

“There’s the opportunity to just kind of talk how things are going, see what’s going on, and then get a great chance like this to learn. It teaches you how to talk to people and do things. There’s a skill to it.”

Orwig is very appreciative of his Hall of Fame induction.

“It’s just cool that your peers think of you enough to put you up there. I think there’s a lot of guys out there who give a huge Hall of Fame effort, so they’ll be recognized, but if they don’t and if I never would have, then the association is still better off than if you just come and take up chair,” he said.