By MOLLY WALTER

The Hays Daily News

Fort Hays State University's athletic department will host its third annual Tiger Auction and Dinner on Aug. 25 at the Memorial Union Ballroom. Doors open at 4 p.m., and dinner starts at 5 p.m.

"It's essentially a fundraiser for the athletic department operations and scholarships -- money we need to operate and bring in the best student-athletes we can to help us win," Assistant Athletic Director Tim Callahan said.

The first Tiger Auction and Dinner was in 2010 and raised approximately $85,000. The next year, the athletic department raised more than double that.

The auction consists of both an oral auction with approximately 70 items and a silent auction with 200 to 300 items. All of the auction items were donated by local businesses, alumni, coaches, parents and anyone else who wanted to donate something. The live auction has furniture, electronics, a four-person, three-day hunting trip to Argentina, plane tickets, Country Stampede tickets, lawnmowers, iPads and more.

"We try to get a lot more than just athletic stuff," Callahan said. "A lot of people will think that since it's an athletic auction, all you're going to see are signed footballs, football tickets, basketball tickets and things like that. But our goal as a committee is to try and find something for everyone including items for folks who are not avid sports fans. We have a lot of different things, a very good variety of auction items."

The Tiger Auction and Dinner originally was founded by Tiger Club, a group of some of the athletic department's biggest supporters. The goal was to bring in extra needed money for the department. They developed a 12 to 15 person committee that leads the charge for the auction. The committee works year-round to plan the event and is responsible for selling tickets and rounding up all auction items.

The cost for the Tiger Auction and Dinner is $50 a ticket, which includes dinner, drinks and a bid number. Raffle tickets also are available for $50. Raffle ticket winners could win a Polaris Ranger 400, $1,000 cash prize or $500 Cerv's gas card.

The capacity of the event is 450 people.

"We expect to sell out this year," Callahan said.