Birthday party held for popular local auctioneer

There’s one thing certain about Pahrump resident Ski Censke.

He’s always more than happy to lend his talents and enthusiasm to numerous local charities and fundraisers.

As such, a gathering of friends and associates turned out to Mountain Falls on Saturday, Aug. 28, to celebrate his 70th birthday.

To the few area residents who have never had the pleasure or opportunity to meet Censke, there are many superlatives to describe his personality.

“Too funny for words,” “entertaining,” and “witty,” would be a good start.

Censke’s longtime friend Willi Baer helped to organize the birthday party.

“I’ve known Ski for many years and he’s helped many non-profit charities, so if they need help he is always there,” Baer recalled. “In our community, he’s just amazing, and when he does the auctions, he is very funny and that is part of his charm because he makes everyone laugh, but his main focus is raising funds for our charities.”

Volunteering his time

Among some of those charities Censke has helped to raise funds for is the Court Appointed Child Advocates (CASA) program, Pahrump’s No To Abuse, and the Soroptimist International of Pahrump Valley, which Censke’s friend Linda Fitzgibbons is a longtime member of.

Fitzgibbons noted that Censke performed the fundraising charity auctions pro bono.

“He has an amazing sense of humor and that was what made everything so fun,” Fitzgibbons said. “When he was our auctioneer at all of the different fundraisers, he volunteered his time and that’s what made it so special. His personality really showed and he made spending money fun. I think that if we added up all the hours that he put in for all of the charities and all of the money that he made for all of the charities over the years, I’m sure we’d be well over a million dollars.”

Looking back

As an auctioneer for roughly 50 years, Censke has been performing auctions with his longtime associate Ron Gipson in Nye County for about 21 years.

During his party, Censke reflected on his career as a bonafide auctioneer.

“I think I’ve been very, very fortunate that the first four or five years out here, we just kind of stayed to ourselves, and then we figured out, there was a need,” he said. “Ronnie started working with me, unloading trucks at 15, and he’s 34 now, and I would honestly say that he’s one of the top auctioneers in the country. We’re at about 90 percent to where I’m turning the whole business over to him. I’ll help him whenever I can, but I’m kind of a hypocrite because I tell other people who are in their 70’s to go out and enjoy life, but I’m working 10 hours a day, six days a week.”

Laughing out loud

As a person who is never short on humor, Censke said he takes joy in making others laugh, be it at an auction or just going about his day running errands.

“If I go to Walmart for example, it does not bother me to stop and tell a cashier who’s having a bad day, a good funny joke,” he said. “If you don’t add humor in your life, what are you gonna do?”

Additionally, Censke spoke about how he is able to convince fundraiser attendees to donate to the cause during his auctions.

“I’ve had the same speech for every single auction, word for word when we started the charity auction,” he recalled. “I welcome everybody, tell them why we’re here, and explain to them that it is my job to raise as much money as we can for this organization. To do that, I will go to any extreme to get your money. In the course of doing that, if by chance I offend you, then I would strongly suggest you suck it up and deal with it because my job is to get into your pocket, and it works. At the last celebrity auction, with that borderline X-rated gathering, we made more money than ever in the history of any of the celebrity auctions.”

Reflecting on society

On a final thought, Censke spoke about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the auction business and society as a whole, regardless of political affiliation.

“We are all Americans, so we need to stand up, pull together, and figure out what’s the solution to this because of the impact it is having,” he said. “With me personally, all of the auctions have to be done online, but I’m not an online auctioneer. I have to ask my 10-year-old grandbaby how to make something happen on my cell phone. It’s tough for me to sit in an office with two other people where I can’t see or hear anyone. That’s why I was so excited for the recent high school spaghetti dinner football auction because it was the first real live event. It was great for me to stand up there and scan the room and see all the smiling faces with people bidding and laughing, and making fun of each other. That’s what life used to be like, and we need to do whatever we have to do to get that back.”

Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes