June 1, 1927 – January 6, 2018
Auctioneer; retired farmer; founding member of the Bluewater Angus Club. Born June 1, 1927; died Jan. 6, 2018, age 91.
Gordon Ribey, a long-time Bruce County auctioneer, “was a landmark,” according to Garry Kuhl, Keady Livestock Market manager.
Ribey died suddenly in early January of an apparent heart attack, his younger brother Rodney Ribey said.
Until Gordon retired from farming and moved to Port Elgin, he maintained his purebred Ryebee Angus herd on 145 acres near Tiverton. Rodney’s Angus Knoll Farm herd still has animals he acquired from Gordon’s retirement sale.
But auctioneering was Gordon’s full-time work. He wore a “signature” broad-brimmed western hat. He solicited bids in a measured, gentlemanly style that made him one of the best-known cattle auctioneers in Ontario’s most active cattle-rearing region, Kuhl and Gordon’s brother agreed.
In addition to weekly sales at Keady, Gordon worked at the Cargill Auction Market and the Ontario Livestock Exchange in Kitchener, as well as the Wiarton-based Grey-Bruce Livestock Cooperative’s spring and autumn sales. He literally ran “hundreds and hundreds of farm auctions,” Rodney said.
“He knew his animals and he knew prices,” Kuhl said of Gordon’s calm and steady style.
Ribey family photo
Written by Jim Algie.
Originally published in the March 2018 edition of Better Farming.