Columnists - The Durango Herald

Honoring the life and legacy of Judy Heumann

On March 4, we lost a major champion for disability rights. Advocate, rabble-rouser and longtime disability rights hero Judy Heumann died at age 75. Heumann had been fighting for her rights ...

DATE: Mar 14, 2023 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

Posey’s War in Bears Ears: Telling the Truth a Century Later

By the 1920s, most of the American West had been settled. There were Ford automobiles, telephones, mercantile stores and small town newspapers. But there was also injustice, racism and well-...

DATE: Mar 14, 2023 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Finding Leo’s galaxies

Greetings stargazers. End Daylight Saving Time! There – I got my semiannual rant out of the way and can get back to what are likely more productive musings. Leo is one of the constellations ...

DATE: Mar 13, 2023 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Lift off after liftoff: New home may be needed for Lift 11

Dear Action Line: After my nice unexpected walk (Feb. 23) from lift 8 to lift 3 in the deep snow when the lift shut down, I started to think of all the improvements promised or dreamed o...

DATE: Mar 12, 2023 | CATEGORY: Action Line

It takes a system, not just a goal

Are you working hard toward your health goals or are you stuck in a state of “where do I start?” In coaching thousands of clients over the years, almost all come to me saying “I know what to...

DATE: Mar 10, 2023 | CATEGORY: Healing Nutrition

Betting, transfer rules make CU ‘Compromise University’

University of Colorado at Boulder has recently fired its latest head football coach and hired Deion Sanders to replace him. Sanders is coming off admirable success as coach of Jackson State ...

DATE: Mar 10, 2023 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Editorial cartoon

DATE: Mar 10, 2023 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Who’s driving the train, restructuring boards?

Sixteen former mayors of Durango are concerned about the proposed reorganization and restructuring of Durango’s boards and commissions. How each board or commission is continued, changed or ...

DATE: Mar 10, 2023 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Bach Festival, 16 and counting

Starting Sunday and all next week, Third Avenue Arts will celebrate the 338th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s the 16th annual collection of recitals and concerts organized by Four Co...

DATE: Mar 9, 2023 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Gym relationship hard to quit

DEAR ABBY: I am a healthy, single, 76-year-old man. I spend lots of time at a local gym. I met a woman there two years ago, and we went out for coffee. She’s a few years younger than I am. S...

DATE: Mar 9, 2023 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Durango hosts Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

Reverend Peyton will go anywhere. The country blues guitar player who leads The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band is one of those musicians more comfortable when asphalt is rolling by under th...

DATE: Mar 9, 2023 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Chronicle of abandoned oil and gas well - one of millions

Even from a distance it’s clear that an oil and gas well called “State Senate #2” in New Mexico has seen better days. The pumpjack sits idle, tumbleweeds surround the once-moving parts, and ...

DATE: Mar 9, 2023 | CATEGORY: Opinion

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