The bids just kept coming, and the dollars kept going up.
Megan Murray stood in front of the gathered crowd at the Johnson County Fair’s livestock auction, presenting the crossbred steer that she had spent months working with. The fact that the Trafalgar resident was even at the fair this year was astounding; Murray and two of her friends had been seriously injured in a car accident in August 2021, which kept her in the hospital for 98 days.
So as the bidding rose to $10,000, then $15,000, and eventually to $26,000, Murray burst into tears.
“I heard the auctioneer say, ‘$10,000’ and I broke down,” she said. “And it just kept climbing. It was surreal. I was in shock.”
The sale of Murray’s steer set a Johnson County Fair record, the culmination of nearly 12 months of hardship and difficulty following the accident. The record-setting sale was coordinated by the fair community, who banded together to help Murray, a longtime 4-H and FFA member.
“We started with a very small goal, half of what she ended up with, and the community just kept pouring into it, even minutes before she stepped into the ring,” said Justin Kaiser, a friend of Murray’s family and the one who helped rally bids for the sale. “It was amazing that she was even alive and able to walk, let alone show in the fair.”
Murray was riding Kya Lasley and Keilyn Stauffer to the Indiana State Fair to show cattle on Aug. 3 when their pick-up truck was sideswiped by another truck on Interstate 65. The collision forced their truck over a bridge onto the street below.
She spent much of her senior year at Indian Creek High School in recovery, enduring 13 major surgeries while re-learning to walk again, feed herself and write. She had to overcome memory and vision problems.
Throughout her rehabilitation, she clung to the hope that she’d be able to participate in the fair for her final year.
“When I was laying in that hospital bed, I didn’t think I’d be able to even go to the fair, let alone be able to show,” she said.
While in recovery, Murray’s friends helped out by showing her animals. As she regained her strength and her body healed, she was able to start showing again herself.
Being back on the fairgrounds, among her friends and the people who supported her over the years, was a blessing, she said.
“It was amazing to see all of my friends and meet all of the people who would come up to me and say, ‘You don’t know me, but I prayed for you. I’m so happy to see that you’re here.’ It was an amazing feeling,” she said.
Even before the livestock auction, Murray’s fair week was a successful one. She won reserve champion middleweight market steer, champion crossbred steer and reserve grand champion beef steer.
Unbeknownst to her, the fair community was preparing an even greater honor. An effort had grown in the weeks leading up to the fair, spearheaded by Kaiser, to organize buyers to bid for Murray’s steer.
Kaiser had helped Murray buy the calf that she ended up selling, and has been active with others in the community to help the family following the accident.
“We were working with them back when she was in her accident going to the state fair, and everything seemed to kind of crumble down on them,” he said. “We felt it was the right thing to do.”
The sale brings successful closure to Murray’s 4-H career and provides a turbo charge for the next stage of her life. She leaves for Oklahoma State in about 30 days, where she will study agriculture business, farm and ranch management, and animal science.
Her love for those areas has grown immensely in recent years, and she’s excited to delve more deeply into those areas of study.
“This beef project at the fair has really opened my eyes to it, and I’ve fallen in love with it,” she said.
