Letters to the Editor - The Durango Herald

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Mountain Middle, helping make better dog families

Thank you to Mountain Middle School and Shane Voss for letting us use your fabulous school to host a dog handling seminar. We spent a weekend training our local dog handlers how to compete i...

DATE: May 30, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

There’s hope for single-payer health care

My medical colleagues and I regularly see patients who have waited far too long to seek care and who have suﬀered needlessly as a result. Why? Because they either totally lack health insura...

DATE: May 30, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Wolves help, not hurt, elk populations

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DATE: May 28, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Hurd is hurting the Western Slope

The House recently passed their “Big Beautiful Bill” of health care cuts, cuts to veteran services, increased energy bills and juicy tax cuts that disproportionately benefit billionaires. Th...

DATE: May 28, 2025 | CATEGORY: Opinion

ICE just ‘disappeared’ five hardworking men

I’m writing regarding the recent arrest of five employees of Rock Solid Granite in Durango. These men are hard working, skilled stone masons, not murderers and rapists. They show up for work...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Author invokes facts selectively and inconsistently

In the recent opinion column, “Democrats are invoking the ‘Rule of Law‘ selectively and hypocritically,” (Herald, May 18), the author employed a mix of “alternative facts,” false equivalenci...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Using the fund balance is not sustainable

After reading articles (Herald, May 4, Herald , May 6) on the salary negotiations between Durango School District 9-R and its employee associations, I understand the frustration on both s...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Medicaid, a lifeline that matters because I matter

I am writing as a proud member of the disability community in Southwest Colorado. I live, work and volunteer independently with the support I receive through Medicaid. I’m deeply concerned a...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Veterans’ plea: Stand up for us

We, the undersigned, are Vietnam veterans who are currently receiving medical and mental health care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics. Every one of us st...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

We need a small-dog and more dog parks

This is like the “emperor has no clothes.” There is only one dog park in Durango. This dog park is not one-size-fits-all. I have a small, energetic dog who quickly becomes prey in this one ...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

The time to speak up loudly is now

I recall from pre-Fox, pre-Limbaugh days that I could talk with Republicans about what they valued and their view for legislative policies and social programs. We could find common ground wi...

DATE: May 25, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Durango’s roads, trails no longer safe

I have read with horror that someone was killed on the Animas River Trail. Yes, killed. The trail is no longer a safe place for anyone, unless you’re walking slowly and watching out for ever...

DATE: May 23, 2025 | CATEGORY: Letters to the Editor

Photos: High County Cattle Auction

High Country Cattle Auction brings top-notch stock and country charm to Southwest ColoradoFamily run, generational business dates back to 1940s

BREEN – The family-owned and operated High Country Cattle Auction is “in the bones” of the Cugnini family, said third-generation owner Chris Cugnini. The business was founded by Chris’ grandfather, Pat Cugnini, in the 1940s. Pat then passed the business down to his son, Duane Cugnini, who then turned the business over to daughters, Becky Hawkins and Chris Cugnini, whose daughters plan to take over the family business one day. The auction, which takes place once or twice a month from April to January at 13062 La Plata Highway (Colorado Highway 140) near Breen, attracts ranchers, farmers and those in the cattle industry from far and wide.

Former Durango resident Steve Greenburg has been attending the High Country Cattle auction for more than 40 years, and continues to travel to Breen all the way from Arizona, where he now lives. He attended the September auction last week, where around 1,200 animals were up for sale. Greenburg said effective bidding takes concentration and a practiced hand. “You want to make sure you don’t pay too much,” he said. “And if you do, you want to buy the business.” Amber Belvin, employee of 15 years and Chris’ operations “sidekick,” said bidders are most often looking for signs of good health in an animal, like a plump, filled-out body. If bidding on a herd, a look of uniformity among the animals is key to a good purchase, she said.

Despite Greenburg already having a handful of filled out bidding cards marking the cattle he had won within an hour of the Sept. 23 auction, he said the day was young. One sale day last year culminated in Greenburg taking home 22 semi-trucks worth of cattle, he said. Chris said Greenburg is one of the auction’s longest-term and most generous supporters. “(Greenburg) pays top-dollar,” Chris said. “And (that) makes me feel good, because we’re giving back to (the sellers). I know these people around here, and they’re the hardest working people on the planet. If I can get them 10 or 20 cents more per pound, then that makes us happy.”

Cattle auction prices have gone up in recent years, both at High Country and nationally, Chris said. This year, animals are going for $2,500 to $3,000 a head – double and triple the average prices from last year. The increase, Chris said, is in part because of a screw worm making the rounds in cattle in Mexico, which has lowered the number of cattle coming in from the south, along with people subdividing and selling cattle branches, and local cattle herd numbers diminishing, which has increased demand.

Chris called the price increase “good and bad.” “It’s great if you’re a seller, because there’s prices that you’ve never seen before,” she said. “Older men come in, (and they) can’t believe the prices. Some of them do this for a living, and they count on that, so they’re so happy.” Belvin said some smaller farmers opt to buy less cattle during price surges like this, but echoed Chris’ sentiment about sellers being ecstatic about the unprecedented profit.

Local cattle farmer Lawrence Martinez entered 59 steers and 95 heifers in the auction Tuesday. Martinez has been involved in the High Country Cattle Auction “pretty much forever,” but recent years have been especially fruitful for sales, he said. “These last few years, we’ve been coming here to sell, because this is the place to go,” he said. “I wouldn’t sell anywhere else. (The market here has) been so good.”The auction’s community roots and generational touch doesn’t stop at the Cugnini family: Shane Hatch, the auctioneer, took over the job after his father’s death, Belvin said.

The auction serves as an opportunity for community members to get together and bond, Belvin said. “When we do have an auction, it’s a great place where local farmers and ranchers can get together and talk,” she said. “They come to the cafe, and they talk about the hay, and the drought situation, and I think it’s a good connecting point.” Chris and Belvin both expressed feeling glad the auction can supply so much generational value to the local farming and ranching community. “I mean, what other business can you think of around here that’s the same, right?” Belvin said. “We’re fair, and we’re very meticulous at our jobs. We take it very seriously, because this is (some peoples’) livelihood.”

For the Cugninis – and long-term employees like Belvin, who have become an honorary part of the close-knit High Country Cattle Auction family – the heart of the business aligns with the heart of the local farming and ranching community. “We’re just good, hard working people – Americans – that want to make a good living, and live off this great land,” Belvin said. epond@durangoherald.com

Family run, generational business dates back to 1940s