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| Car talk: Bryan Knox, who recently won an international auctioneers competition, solicits bids while working a car sale in
Moody, Ala. carmen k. sisson |
Bryan Knox's bid to be the best auctioneer
The part-time preacher won an international auctioneers competition recently – the result of a strong voice, deft chant, and genteel sales style.
from the December 19, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Knox discovered his two "callings" early in life. When he was 16, he attended his first auction, a sale of cars, in Cullman, Ala. "Just the sound of the auctioneer's chant to me was so intriguing that I knew instantly that that was something I wanted to do," he says.
He enrolled in auctioneer's school, beginning his quest to join an ancient business. (Auctions date back to 500 B.C., when the Babylonians sold brides to the highest bidders.) To this day, he works to perfect his craft, but not in a classroom. "I'll be going down the road calling bids, and every time I pass a telephone pole or something, I'll take that as a bid," he says. "Depending on how fast or slow you're going down the Interstate, the bidding can get pretty furious."
When he was 17, Knox responded to another voice – an inner one. "I just felt like God was, as we call, 'troubling my waters.' I couldn't get any rest," he says. "I just prayed and prayed and prayed, and God slowly gave me the peace like I was supposed to preach."
Knox is the first in his family to take up the pulpit. His mother was a homemaker, his father a pipe worker. For the past four years, Knox has been pastor at a small independent church in Mount Olive, a town just north of Birmingham.
There are parallels between his two loves. For one thing, he delivers his sermons with equal measure of frenzy and humor. "His biggest asset is the way he relates to people," says Chuck Crump, auction coordinator at Amerisouth.
The geniality he has perfected as a preacher definitely comes in handy behind the auctioneer's podium. "As soon as he says two words out there, you just like Bryan," says Gantt. "People enjoy coming to see him."
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