Longtime Dakil employee Bill Rackley logs auction items at his computer.
Louis Dakil likes to introduce his friend and co-worker Bill Rackley as Brother Bill. The longtime Dakil Auctioneers, Inc. employee comes equipped with a five-tool repertoire. Rackley, who doubles as a pastor, can do it all. Louis will affectionately explain how Bill can marry you, bury you, auction you off, sell you, and pray for you.
The line comes partially from an old pastor joke — a large chunk of ministry includes marriage, funerals, and prayers. Add the buying and selling aspect of auctions, and you’ve got Rackley, a 67-year-old former welder and press brake operator who uses his kind-hearted approach to spread wisdom.
Rackley’s journey through the ministry and auctioneer business spans many decades. He can talk for hours about how a radio advertisement sparked his business career. He’ll be the first to explain how a pencil and paper industry evolved into an online monstrocity. To this day, Rackley is still chuckling over tales that span more than 30 years. But his story is not one of how he got here, but rather, why he keeps going. And that answer is direct and to the point — he keeps the faith and hopes to connect with others.
“It’s more important than all this. If you can get one soul saved, delivered, set free, or healed, it’s worth more than anything. That’s the greatest thing in the world,” Rackley said.
If you’ve been around auctions long enough, you’re likely familiar with the five ruIes that kept business flowing — death, taxes, divorce, alcoholism/drug addiction, and sickness. Why? Each negative life event generally results in the forfeiture of assets or the need to sell a business, house, property, or automobiles.
It’s an industry that puts you front and center with adversity. Throughout the years, Rackley has learned to embrace the difficulties by lending a helping hand to whomever he comes in contact with.
“He has a passionate and caring heart,” Louis said. “Faith without work is meaningless. It’s about your actions. People can know where your heart is just through your actions and your voice and what you say. If anyone needs a deed, we’re there to help in any manner.”
Rackley’s church duties at Friendship Chapel Assembly of God in south Oklahoma City come first. His schedule revolves around the ministry. The rest of the time he juggles work duties as an auctioneer, appraiser, and consultant with Dakil. There’s no one more understanding than Louis, who, like Rackley, is a man of faith. Dakil doesn’t hold auctions on Wednesdays and Sundays, the busiest days for a pastor like Rackley. The leeway allows Rackley to serve both his passions.
He can handle double duties in the office, talking with church members or praying with others. Occasionally, it crosses over to the auction business.
“When someone is going through something, I ask, ‘Would you like me to pray with you?’ And you get to pray with people and show them the faith of God,” Rackley said.
“The auction business has been great to me. Meeting people and helping people is the greatest part.”
You’d need a calculator to determine how many auctions Rackley has worked in his 38-year career, the last 33 of which came with Dakil. Using a conservative estimate of 100 a year, that number creeps into the thousands. Throw in real estate auctions, which account for an additional 100 to 200 a year, and the figure skyrockets.
The sheer number means Rackley has seen about every type of auction. But does he have a favorite? He likes them all. He enjoys car auctions and muscle cars. Antiques were his go-to. Notice the past tense, as he noted there used to be 70 stores on a 110-block area of May Avenue in Oklahoma City. Most of them have perished.
He still collects marbles and presidential items. Everything else has departed, kind of like the cast iron horse head from 16th century France that he once held 30 years ago. The 400-pound item is one of the “neatest” things he’s sold. He made more than $500 in profit and sold it for $600.
The memories create an avenue for storytelling. Initially, selling cars or horse heads were for monetary reasons.
“I heard an advertisement on the radio. Our finances were low. I was praying and I told the Lord I have to have a way to pay my finances,” Rackley recalled.
That advertisement was for an auction school, a prerequisite for someone entering the industry. Rackley followed through with the calling and ended up at Cecil Abernathy’s Auction School. The two-week, 40-hour course covered chants, auction laws, cashier and clerk skills, sales management, and sales setup.
Rackley auctioned for a local company and worked for the IRS as an auctioneer before opening his own small auction house. The IRS gig provided valuable experience and, at the very least, stories that will last decades. One time, Rackley auctioned off a pimp’s house in Muskogee, Oklahoma. A law office next door was also included. There was, of course, a stipulation. The sale had to meet an appraised value ($10,000 for the law office; $16,000 for the pimp’s place).
A boat, jewelry, a safe, and hats and jackets made out of fur brought in close to $40,000 to soar past the appraised value. The law office? Not nearly as profitable. In fact, it was $400 short with seven items left for sale.
“We had a coffee maker, vacuum cleaner, and office supplies. It broke their hearts to have to give $150 for a $10 coffee maker,” Rackley said.
The blue Dakil polo shirt Rackley wears in his office isn’t solely to display his faith on his sleeves. It happens organically, like the time they gathered with a customer and said a prayer. It provided a calming effect and was a reminder the importance of letting people see good work and faith through you. Help others, not yourself.
Rackley’s religious roots were much less spur of the moment than his auction endeavors. He’ll never forget the day he was saved — March 10, 1973. Within a few years, at the ripe age of 22, he served as an associate and youth pastor at Friendship Chapel. He left a 16-year career in manufacturing to enter a full-time role as a pastor, until he learned of how an auction career could help supplement his church efforts.
“The auction business changes your life,” Rackey said. “It’s the only business in the world where you can make as much as a lawyer or doctor without seven years of education. It’s a great business.”
The true life-changing professional moment came when he met Louis and his wife, Susan, at a Dakil auction. They were short of help, and Rackley stepped in. The bonds of their relationship have been tethered for the past 33 years.
“The day he came on I knew his character and quality,” Louis said. “He’s the kind of guy, when it comes to work, I don’t tell him what to do. People are like an elevator. They’ll either take you up or down, and you want people who will take you up that are around you. That’s what we have. You’re only as good as the people who work with you. A chain is stronger with more links.”
Rackley’s kindness and non-confrontational attitude paired well with Dakil’s business model. His meticulous work ethic was a change for Louis. He remembers a time when they sold ruby red and green glassware sets. Rackley spent a day separating and logging hundreds of tea cups, plates, and other accessories.
“Bill said we’re going to give them a choice. I said, ‘Yeah, Bill, we’re going to give them a choice … you can have all the green or red or buy both for one price,'” said Louis, explaining his preference of selling in bulk. “He looked at me silly. It did fantastic. We sold it all.”
The work continued throughout the ’80s and ’90s. Rackley saw first-hand how the Dakils started as a tiny business with a typewriter in a spare bedroom and file cabinets in a garage of their old home to a 28,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility. Together, they grinded through auctions, logging, tagging, and writing up buyer’s guides. Then they auctioned it off. They traveled everywhere — all across the country.
And Rackley was there each step of the way. Not bad for a young adult who made a leap of faith based off a radio segment.
“The way God blessed us is tremendous,” Rackley said.
Are you interested in the auction business or want to learn more about what Dakil has to offer? Contact us today, or call directly at (405) 751-6179. To see when our next auction takes place, view our upcoming auctions schedule page.
