Badly written article - for example, they never mention what the bid was.
Back in the 1930s during the Depression when farms were being foreclosed, there were penny auctions - the owners bid pennies on their own farms and equipment, their neighbors stood mute, and the farmers kept their land. Banks weren't happy at all, and termed these penny auctions "illegal." (It was the Depression, and the general public had little sympathy for banks.)
Looks like the same spirit is still alive in rural America.