Our History

Time Line for Black Diamond Auctions

March, 1979

Frank Imholte became an auctioneer (aka ”Colonel”) by finishing school at Reisch World Wide College of Auctioneering in Mason City, Iowa.

8/25/79

First auction was a personal property auction of Dale Mruz, Frank’s aunt. Our ringman, Pete Leyk, started with us and is working with us to this day.

10/1/83

First consignment auction was hosted on his home farm in St. Cloud.

1984

Relocated the business from Kimball, MN to St. Cloud, MN; our oldest child Andy began “running sheets “ at five years old.

1986

First Real Estate auction for Black Diamond Auctions, a pioneer in the St. Cloud area for offering RE at auction. Success is sweet.

1987

11 auctions this year; one included a two day auction of Twin Barns antiques in Fair Haven, MN. Also 1st “Best of Show” award at MSAA convention.

1988

20 auctions; almost doubled in number.

1989

21 auctions, ranging from business liquidations to Real Estate to Personal Property to farm equipment.

1990

31 auctions, starting the year with a dairy farm auction and ending with Real Estate; our fifth child is born and completes the family auction team.

1991

Col. Keith Sharer joins our team as an auctioneer and remains with BDA today.

1992

BDA’s annual Labor Day Auction tradition began.

1995

Computer clerking began.

1996

First Stearns County Auction.

1997

Computer clerking wireless-instant transmission.

1998

Col Frank became Life member of the National Auctioneers Association.

2000

Largest to-date Dairy/Farm/Real Estate auction.

2004

Andrew Imholte, our oldest son, joins the team as an auctioneer. He also routinely designed our auction bills.

2007

Golden Gavel awarded to Col Frank at MSAA Conference.

2008

Our second son, Joe, attended auction school in Mason City, Iowa and participated in the rookie contest. Col. Frank awarded “Hall of Fame” for the MN Auctioneers Association.

2009

Celebrated 30 years in the business, celebrating with a barn dance and hosting Chamber Connection of St. Cloud. Several 1 st place awards at MSAA Conference.

2012

Hosted a large Personal Property auction with over 1000 people in attendance and our entire family team + worked the auction. Hosted several successful RE auctions in the fall. “Best of Show” and 4 -1st place awards at MSAA Conference. Also 1st place at NAA.

2013

Our daughter, Katie, is now a Colonel. She graduated from World Wide College of Auctioneering on Sunday, February 24, 2013. Won 4 - 1st place awards at MSAA Conference and Show. Col Andrew also won the “Golden Gavel“ award at Conference.

2014

Our son Michael is now an auctioneer, graduating from World Wide Auction school in June of this year. Joe and Jen Imholte ran the lunch wagon for the first time and plan to repeat it next year. Matthew proclaimed he now is an auctioneer at five years old. This fall we were able to auction in one day for Stearns County four pieces of RE in St. Cloud area and a wetland credit. No sale on the wetland. Everything sold on that sunny day. Three consignment auctions this year.

2015

This was a more quiet year for auctions. Real Estate wasn’t selling well at our auctions. We hosted our usual consignment auctions with an additional in October. Memorial Day and Labor were big, October was small. Michael was able to auction more with us this year due to a job change from HOM to Rengel Printing. Katie and Erich helped us on a consignment auction. We decided we need to make a plan in 2016 to grow or remain as we are.

2016

We started our auction season early this year. Not with auctions, but planning. Frank and Peg met. We then asked Joe and Jen if they were willing to help us try to grow the business. They said yes. That started almost weekly meetings, depending on our schedules on Tuesdays at 5:30 with Frank, Joe and Peg, later to be joined by Michael. Training happened in handling the website and Facebook after making a difficult decision to leave DAYTA Marketing. They graciously helped train us and gave us support as well as a John Schultz training in early February. All our family attended the MN State Auctioneers’ Conference…that was cool. Andy is continuing with podcasts, changing the format to every other week. He reached his 100th podcast in January. WOW!

2017

BDA continues to pursue more social marketing with Facebook as our son Joe designs our Facebook campaigns. Michael, Joe, Frank and I meet usually monthly. Michael is pursuing growing a division of Black Diamond Auctions: Black Diamond Benefits. The purpose is to grow this division, starting in Central Minnesota. Through the St. Cloud Area Chamber Connection, relationships are forming to develop this division.

2018

Peg retires from Resource Training and Solutions. She becomes a Managing Partner for Black Diamond Auctions and Black Diamond Benefits. We continue to grow our Black Diamond Benefits division with more local benefits: Cathedral High School, Assumption Community of Cold Spring, Children's Day Montessori, Birthline, and Society for Experiential Graphic Design.