Nationality American Political party Republican Party Name Keith Babb | Spouse(s) Carolyn L. Babb Religion Southern Baptist | |
Born March 1944 Place of birth missing Residence Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, USA Occupation Auctioneer
Former television broadcaster with KNOE-TV in Monroe, Louisiana Children Keith Bryan Babb
Keena Babb Antley | ||
Keith Wayne Babb (born March 1944) is an auctioneer of American Quarter Horses, having sold more than 40,000 horses at auctions in 28 states in a career exceeding 40 years. Babb resides with his wife on a 400-acre ranch near Monroe in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana.
Contents
Background
Babb father, Keith Franklin Babb (1915-2005), was a native of Malvern in Hot Spring County, Arkansas. For fifty years, the senior Babb was a pastor of Southern Baptist churches in southern Arkansas and North Louisiana, including Marion in Union Parish and after 1952 in Bastrop in Morehouse Parish. His mother, the former Bessie Mavis Hooks (1917-2009), was a teacher. While he was a boy living in Bastrop, Babb listened to radio station KTRY and became fascinated with the weekly Monday broadcast of livestock auctions.
Babb was married in 1970 in the Lakeshore Baptist Church in Monroe to the former Carolyn Ladner (1941-2017), a native of Poplarville, Mississippi, the daughter of Harry and Essie Ladner.
Career
Babb procured a degree in journalism from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and is a former president of the ULL Alumni Association. In 1966, he attended the Superior School of Auctioneering in Decatur, Illinois. He also worked for the former KNOE (AM) and KNOE-TV, the CBS affiliate in Monroe, both founded by former Governor James A. Noe. With Jack E. McCall (1926-1994), he was for several years the co-host of the KNOE Good Morning Ark-La-Miss program. Babb is a director of Bank One Corporation of Louisiana.
In 1971, Babb, known for his baritone voice, became a full-time auctioneer handling the sale of real estate, farm machinery, and business liquidations to remain financially solvent. Then while reading through a trade magazine, he spotted an advertisement for an auctioneer of horses. This quickly became his passion.
In 2004, Babb was inducted into the National Auctioneers Association Hall of Fame. In 2015, he won the "Special Recognition Award" from the American Quarter Horse Association Racing Council, which was presented in ceremonies in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The award came with a custom-made cowboy hat and a hand-tooled saddle made in Brazil. According to the AQHA Q-Racing Journal, Babb is "considered the premier auctioneer in the country for American Quarter Horses."
Among the horses Babb has auctioned were First Down Dash and Mr Jess Perry, as well as record-setting Queen For Cash ($1.125 million in 1982) and Tempting Dash ( $1.7 million in 2013). With Tempting Dash, Babb broke his own record from more than three decades earlier with Queen for Cash.
On August 1, 2008, Governor Bobby Jindal appointed Babb, a Republican to the 13-member Louisiana Racing Commission, which regulates horse racing in the state. The commission was established in 1940 and is based in New Orleans. Babb is the member for Louisiana's 5th congressional district.
Though Babb had planned to retire in 2014 at the age of seventy, he kept receiving calls to return to the auction stand: "I've been selling horses for forty years coast to coast, and I don't want to die on the road. I'm determined to retire, but right now I guess you could say I'm semi-retired. ..." Babb added, "The road isn't as fun as it used to be. I don't want to die on the auction stand. But the big thing is, I don't want anyone to say, 'I wish that old man had retired a couple of years ago.' I'd like to go out on top."