Mom raffles steer after fair cancelled

As Covid-19 fears have shut down county fairs and livestock shows, one Lincoln County mom found a creative way to help her daughter sell her fair steer.

Dawn Nelson decided to hold a raffle to help her daughter, Laren, sell a steer that was supposed to be shown and sold at the Lincoln County fair. The beef steer raffle tickets were $100 each or two for $150. The winner would get the steer butchered, cut and wrapped. The steer weighed in at just under 1,400 pounds and 68 tickets for the animal were sold. Using an online number generator, the Nelsons showed their raffle results live on Facebook last week,with the meat going to a family from Electric City. The efforts helped Laren gain just under $5,000 for her efforts.

Although the effort was successful, Dawn said they are not likely to do the raffle in the future but enjoyed the process.

“Our family has gotten a lot out of it and one family has gotten a lot of beef, so it’s a win-win,” Nelson said.