Owners: Auction is not for sale

The auction has not been sold to anyone and is still being operated by the Baer family.

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

ROGERS — The Rogers Community Auction is not being sold to Wal-Mart or anyone else — out-of-control rumor and Internet posting to the contrary.

For confirmation, visit the company’s Web site — RogersOhio.com — where the following message is prominently displayed in bold red letters:

NO TRUTH TO SELL OUT RUMORS!!

Rogers Community Auction Inc. has not been sold to anyone and is still being operated by the Baer family.

In recent weeks, the Rogers Community Auction has been bombarded with at least 100 calls from vendors and patrons, wanting to know if scuttlebutt that the business is being sold or closing is true.

The family is grateful to the people who are considerate enough to call or ask instead of spreading false rumors. “We appreciate their loyalty and continued support,” said Beverly Baer, chairwoman of the auction’s board.

But Baer fears those calls are just the tip of the iceberg, and she is concerned that if vendors and patrons believe the rumor and do not check, they might go elsewhere. That could eventually hurt the business and the people who depend on it, she said.

“One woman came in the office and demanded to know exactly when we were closing because she wanted to apply for a job at the new Wal-Mart distribution center,” Baer said.

Source not found

Finding the source of the rumor has proved impossible. “When we try to pin people down, they say they read it somewhere. But it usually comes down to them hearing it from someone who heard it from someone,” she said.

“Even my preacher asked me if we were closing,” Baer said.

She said a 21-year-old Youngstown State University was so convinced by the false rumor that he posted it on Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia — giving the rumor even wider circulation.

The student, whom Baer tracked down but did not identify, wrote this on Wikipedia under a blurb of general information about the Rogers Community Auction: “The flea market, though hugely popular, will close permanently at the end of August 2007 to make way for a Wal-Mart distribution center.”

The blurb was put on Wikipedia on Aug. 8; Baer discovered in on Aug. 14 and immediately removed it.

That was when she decided to go public to battle the falsehood.

She contacted a lawyer but has so far elected to not pursue legal action against the YSU student. When she contacted him and “growled at him,” he seemed in shock. He said he had heard the false rumor so many times, he thought it was true, she said.

The Rogers Community Auction has been in the Baer family since it was started in 1955 by Emmet and Lucille Baer. After Emmet’s death in 1971, Lucille and her son Jim ran and expanded the business. It now has room for 1,300 outside vendors, 350 indoor vendors, and 70 acres of free parking.

After Jim died in 1999, other family members took over the business.

Family affair

His wife, Beverly, and his daughter, Connie Hughart, manage the office. His sons, Ken and Bill Baer, are managers and licensed auctioneers for the market.

Jim and Beverly’s son Wade is also an auctioneer. Their other children, Megan and Samuel, are students at Kent State University Salem Campus and the Ohio State University Agricultural and Technical Institute in Wooster, respectively, and work part time at the auction.

At this point, there are nine grandchildren.

“I don’t see us ever selling. With more family coming along, it will just be passed down the line,” Beverly Baer said.

Not only do four members of the family make their living from the auction and flea market, it has 10 full-time employees and about 90 part-time employees.

She said the family is taking the false rumor very seriously, and said any questions can be directed to the auction office at (330) 227-3233 or its Web site Rogersohio.com.

In a letter to the editor of area newspapers, Beverly Baer said: “We are now in the third generation of Baers to manage the auction and flea market facility. We have never been approached about selling our facility ... and there are no plans now or in the future for change.”

alcorn@vindy.com