H. Skinner Hardy born June 17, 1938 in Powers Lake North Dakota, the son of Col Harry and Helene Hardy. Skinner’s grandparents owned a sizable Angus ranch in Minot North Dakota. Col. Harry Hardy was an Air Force pilot during World War II. Toward the end of the war Col Harry Hardy suffered a very serious crash in the Southern California area. Upon his release from the hospital, he disappeared for several months. His sister Edith, who was a warden at a North Dakota women’s prison, traveled west to find her brother. She found him in the skid row section of L.A. and demanded that he return home to North Dakota. He refused.
"Ok. What do you want to do with your life?" she asked.
"I want to be an auctioneer," he said.
Not to be derailed in her quest to save her brother, Edith started looking for an auction yard for sale or lease. She found one on South Union Ave in Bakersfield California. Edith and Harry set up shop and began having weekly auctions every Monday.
Skinner soon followed his dad and Aunt Edith to Bakersfield and became a fixture at the family’s auction market. Early on Skinner worked the ring and helped feed, and at night loaded out trucks on his favorite Welch pony that he’d trained himself. During high school Skinner became involved in FFA. Skinner loved showing at the local Kern County Fair. He had great success in his show career and in fact had the Grand Champion steer at Prestigious Cow Palace in San Francisco. One of the awards for winning were 3 large coins with the California seal on one side and the Cow Palace on the other.
It’s not surprising being around the cattle auction that the auctioneer bug bit Skinner. So, in 1958 he graduated auction school and began working behind the mic with Col. Hardy. As Skinner progressed, his auctioneer talents grew greatly. In the 1965 Livestock Market Association World Livestock Auctioneer Championship contest Skinner was reserve World Champion. The next year 1966 Skinner competed in the WLAC in Kansas City. That was the year that Skinner won it all. He will forever be a World Champion Auctioneer. Unfortunately, Skinner's dad Col Harry Hardy passed away just a short time before the 1966 contest.
H. Skinner Hardy
Western Stockman's Livestock
Skinner, his dad, and his Aunt Edith had moved to a bigger nicer facility just a few miles north of Bakersfield and began conducting sales there in about 1964. With the passing of his father, all responsibility for the operation of the auction fell to Skinner, at this time he was only 28 years old. He did have the help of Aunt Edith who was the office manager, head bookkeeper and full partner of Skinner until her passing. Skinner became one of the best auctioneers in the country, as the song says his fame spread out from shore to shore, he had all he could do and more and he had to buy a plane to get around.
Skinner was one of the most sought after purebred auctioneers in the Western United States. Selling sales for such noted operations as Brinks Brangus, King Ranch, the Cal Palace Bull Sale and his favorite was probably selling John Wayne’s famous 26 Bar Ranch Hereford Sale in Arizona which he did for many, many years until John Wayne’s death. The auction yard that Skinner and his family had acquired became one of the leading auctions in California, selling as many as 175,000 cattle a year. In those days cattle came from far away both by truck and by rail car. What was known as Western Stockman’s Market sold cattle from as far away as Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Western Stockman’s Market also sold cattle to buyers in every state West of the Mississippi. Skinner was one of the early pioneers in the video auction business having a sale in 1980 in conjunction with John Rodgers. Skinner was very intent on having an auction market that ran very smoothly, because the sale was on Monday he spent many hours of the weekend sorting, yarding, making sure all the cattle were fed and put away, and was very diligent in making a sale order and spent many hours calling buyers and assuring that his consignors were going to get the best prices possible at that time.
In 1990, Skinner sold his Western Stockman’s Market to Jim Pennington and Dave Thompson. He then along with his wife Joanie and his son Freddie (who was named after the famous pure bred auctioneer Freddie Chandler) moved to Oregon. There Skinner harvested timber off the land he bought had it milled to his specifications and built what is today one of the finest houses in the area. Skinner has spent his later life traveling hunting and fishing. Despite reaching the age of 88 and despite some health issues common to people of his generation Skinner has managed to maintain a full and vigorous life. As the oldest auctioneer in the 2020 WLAC contest, Skinner was first up in the Parade of Champions section did a terrific job and received a standing ovation.
Skinner has dedicated his life to the livestock marketing business in many ways he is legendary to the people that he helped both buying and selling their cattle.