Columnists - The Durango Herald

Man weighs revealing health status

DEAR ABBY: I am a gay man who came out late in life. I have three grown, married children and five grandchildren. They are my world, and we are all very close. I’ve had one partner. My famil...

DATE: Feb 21, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

A love letter to the American West

Forget chocolate candies and flowers that fade. My heart belongs to the Great American West, to its history, folklore and unhurried, yet wild ways. From grandpas to outlaws, I come from a l...

DATE: Feb 18, 2024 | CATEGORY: Sports

Solar planning and development underway

Rapid deployment of utility-scale solar projects is a critical piece to addressing climate change impacts associated with electricity generation. Utilities throughout the West are particular...

DATE: Feb 18, 2024 | CATEGORY: Thinking Green

Parents refuse to keep boy under control

DEAR ABBY: I host holiday meals for my out-of-town family. During the last one, my cousin’s 5-year-old son ran up and down the upstairs hallway pretty much nonstop the entire time. The floor...

DATE: Feb 17, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Efforts to connect are met by silence

DEAR ABBY: I am engaged to an amazing guy. We have been together a little more than two years. During our first year, his family was great to me. They acted as if they liked me. However, thi...

DATE: Feb 17, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

League of Women Voters ‘help voters wade through noise’

With a national election on the horizon, the fire hose of information has increased, flooding us through our computers, phones, televisions and mailboxes. It is often difficult to separate f...

DATE: Feb 16, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Surfrajettes bringing surf rock to Durango

Coastal regions aren’t the only places that can pump out surf bands. There’s great instrumental surf-rock bands everywhere, many coming from landlocked states, some even formed and reared in...

DATE: Feb 14, 2024 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

‘Benefit in bears acting like bears, not raiding ranches’

Is there any habit harder to break than harboring a grudge against an old adversary? Yet burying hatchets is exactly what it might take to conserve our wildlife, in the face of ever-increasi...

DATE: Feb 14, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

The Spectrum of Sweetness

We find ourselves past the resolutions of the New Year and at chocolate-laden Valentine’s Day. For some, navigating the dance of eating sugar can feel challenging and confounding. For othe...

DATE: Feb 14, 2024 | CATEGORY: Nourishing Morsels

Mother can’t understand why son walked away

DEAR ABBY: I’ve always been close to my children, but now that they are adults, it seems I’m losing my connection with one of them. He married a girl of a different race, and while that does...

DATE: Feb 13, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Spreading outdoor education throughout the Four Corners

As we zoom into February, San Juan Mountains Association’s education team has donned winter gear and snowshoes to continue our programs among the snowy landscape. Some highlights for our edu...

DATE: Feb 11, 2024 | CATEGORY: Stewards of the Land

Playlist for the planets

Greetings stargazers. I have an astronomy music playlist, and know I am not the only one who has one. I was recently reminded of it because I sing with the Durango Choral Society and the th...

DATE: Feb 11, 2024 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Photos: Cowboy Gathering Social and Parade

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