By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

With an anniversary year ahead of them and nearly four decades of experience behind them, Perala Bros. Auctioneers owners and brothers Dean and Mickey Perala are looking forward to celebrating their 40th anniversary with two new auctioneers by their side.  ¶  The two Perala brothers grew up in the auction industry watching their dad, Donald Perala, as the ring man for two different cattle auctions and also at the Minneapolis Auto Auction in the 1970s. As a cattle jockey and a machinery dealer, the boys attended many auctions with their father.  ¶  “It’s just kind of in our blood, we grew up in the auction industry from day one, whether it be cattle auctions, livestock auctions, barns or farm auctions,” said Dean, “That’s where it started, right there. We grew up with it.”  ¶  Dean went on to attend the Mason City School of Auctioneering in 1986 and started Perala Bros. Auctioneers the same year with his brother Mickey. Needing a backup for auctioneering, Dean started Mickey on learning how to do the job and he self-taught himself enough to do the job alongside his brother. ¶  As a full service auctioneer, Perala Bros. has done estates, households, real estate, and everything in between. If you have something to sell, the Perala Bros. team can help move it. With their acquisition of the property west of town on Camelot Drive in 2019, auction sales have expanded to their New York Mills location in addition to local auctions all summer long.

“What’s nice about that is we can be working two auctions at one time,” said Dean. “One is being set up in the auction barn for this weekend and we can be working another off-site sale all at the same time. That way we can do them every other week, one at the auction barn, one on site, just keep rotating them. That’s how we kept so busy last summer.”

Starting the season each year is always a mystery as winter leaves only when it’s good and ready to. Last year, they were able to get started in March, but it all depends on what the weather is like and what sort of goods people are wanting to sell. Items that are able to be stored and sold indoors are easier to sell when winter is still lingering at the doorstep.

“It’s a little tough to do when you don’t know if you’re going to have a snowstorm,” said Dean. “It usually takes a month in advance to get the advertising started and the descriptions and photos.”

This year’s season will come with some new help in Dean’s son Andrew Perala and son-in-law Cody Jyrkas, both of whom have been involved in the auctions before, but are now stepping into the positions of auctioneer. Andrew and Cody recently attended and graduated from the World Wide College of Auctioneering in Des Moines, Iowa on October 25, 2025.

“It’s going to be very beneficial to us,” said Dean. “They’re young, they have a lot of new ideas they brought back from college. Me and Mickey are pretty old school, we’re just not interested in doing anything online, we want to keep it live, in-person auctions because there are very few auction companies out there that do it anymore. Most of them are going online.

“The service we provide—people love live auctions, they really do—I hear it a lot, our customers love the live auctions,” he continued. “If the boys want to take off with any online sales, they can do that, I told them they can do whatever they want, it doesn’t matter to us. We are going to continue going the way we are, but bringing them onboard, if they want to pursue some new ideas, they can do it.”

Family is of great importance to the Perala clan as well as to their business, which operates with all hands on deck during the auction season. With family members making up the auctioneers, ring men, clerking service and other tasks, it’s a family affair during sale day. From Dean’s wife Brenda and daughters, Kristen and Coco clerking, and grandkids helping with tasks to his brother Neil assisting in the ring from time to time, everyone shares in the tasks at hand and has a great deal of fun while doing it.

“Everybody knows what needs to be done,” said Cody. “The expectations are usually high, but we know what needs to be done.”

“Like Mickey and I,” explained Dean. “I know exactly what he’s going to be doing and he knows exactly what I’m going to be doing. There isn’t any guessing, we’ve been doing it so long that everything pretty much runs good.”

For Andrew and Cody, they are just beginning to find their rhythm as newly credentialed auctioneers and have been looking forward to this for a long time.

“It’s always been something I wanted to do,” said Andrew. “I loved listening to it. Dad started before I was born, but I always felt like it was my calling. I just always loved listening to auctioneers.”

“I just loved auctions,” said Cody. “I didn’t care if it was close by, I went to it. Even if it meant I had to take a day off of work, just to see people. I’m looking forward to that first auction.”

“Yep, I would say just auctioneering in general,” said Andrew. “You learn after every auction. If you’ve got something to sell, give us a call.”

The schooling portion of the auctioneer training was a 80-hour intensive course over eight days in October with world champion auctioneers teaching about every aspect of the industry that you could think of.

“They all specialized in something different—livestock, cars, online auctions—every form of auction you can think of, they had it,” said Cody. “They had somebody come in there for a day and talk to you about it, which was mind boggling to get so much information in a short amount of time.”

“You’re more mentally exhausted after classes than anything,” agreed Andrew.

Although many students achieved their 80 hours of training, the two brothers-in-law stayed late during most days to practice their cadence and rhythms in hopes of getting some time on the microphone to practice their auctioneering skills.

“Even if it was just in front of eight people, having two or three bidders was a huge help to the both of us in building confidence, because it’s all about being able to put yourself out there as far as I’m concerned. You have to be able to take it on the chin when you do make a mistake if someone calls you out.”

“It was unbelievable,” laughed Andrew. “They completely break you down, it’s like you can barely even count.”

“They were good that way,” agreed Cody. “They were A1 professionals.”

With a whole lot of knowledge and training under their belts, the Perala Bros. team are all looking forward to seeing what their 40th anniversary year will bring with four auctioneers on standby.

“We’re happy to have the boys because a lot of times we sell two rings,” said Mickey. “We’ve done six hours straight with two rings before, and they’re doing good.”

“That way Mickey and I have a chance to get a little break in between,” said Dean. “For practice, they got home Friday night from college and were already selling October 25, the next day, over by Ottertail. When I got out of college it took a few weeks before I got a call. It takes a long time to get established.”

With 40 years of experience under their belts, as well as an extensive following around the local area and throughout the state, Dean and Mickey have built quite the business over the past four decades.

“We do, combined, probably 250 sales a year in three states with the auto auctions,” said Mickey. “We sell in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. It will be nice to have these guys this year.”

Along with getting more involved with Perala Bros. Auctioneers, Andrew and Cody will be debuting Two Finns Auctioneering this spring where they will be selling live on eBay.

“We’re going to do live auctions,” said Cody. “We’ve just been trying to find product and then get our feet wet, it’s a lot easier said than done.”

“And building that following,” added Andrew. “We can’t just have eight family members watching us on eBay Live.”

Perala Bros. Auctioneers will be starting their 40th season this spring and are a full-service auction company. Those interested in finding out more about their auctions are invited to visit their Facebook page or website at www.peralabrosauctioneers.com.