Columnists - The Durango Herald

Can we change the doom and gloom upon us?

When in our long lives so far, have we ever felt so much dread at the state we are in? Sometimes, I feel we are at apocalypse’s door, the final and total destruction of the world. This is me...

DATE: Oct 1, 2022 | CATEGORY: Authentic Aging

What it feels like to find out you have Alzheimer’s

I had been noticing something was different about me when I, a lifelong reader, started avoiding reading instructions - recipes, manuals, long emails. I figured I was getting kind of lazy. I...

DATE: Oct 1, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Housing crisis isn’t a crisis. It’s capitalism.

Absent a shift in our moral compass, our current form of free-market capitalism will transform U.S. society into a largely unrecognizable system defined by extreme inequality and rising pov...

DATE: Oct 1, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

‘Qualifications, experience, work ethic’

Since Rep. Lauren Boebert won the 2020 Republican primary election, she has made a mockery of CD3 while spending most of her time away from the district, working to boost her personal brand ...

DATE: Oct 1, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

KSUT takes deeper dive into history, mission

KSUT is grateful for the opportunity to take a deeper dive into the nuance of its history and mission, as a follow-up to this week’s story in The Durango Herald, focusing on our collaborativ...

DATE: Oct 1, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Living arrangement includes surprise roommate

DEAR ABBY: I was in a relationship that abruptly ended because he cheated. We didn’t have kids, so I moved in with my parents until I was able to get back on my feet and eventually moved out...

DATE: Sep 30, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Woman hid cheating from jailed beau

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been involved for five years. He was sentenced to prison for 3½ years. Before he left, we had a really rocky relationship. He cheated on me with multiple w...

DATE: Sep 30, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Blast and cast

Visiting old friends, hunting dove and fly fishing in Texas

DATE: Sep 30, 2022 | CATEGORY: Sports

At Apple Days, celebrate the versatility of this delicious fruit

Minus the minutes I laid on the couch yelling at the Broncos football team, I spent the better part of Sunday canning applesauce (and pickles and peppers). An early-fall tradition, I spend ...

DATE: Sep 30, 2022 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

Young Dubliners returns to Durango

Celtic rock band Young Dubliners’ young beginnings were as a bar band. Literally. In their early days in the mid-1990s, they were the house band for the bar that frontman and guitar player K...

DATE: Sep 29, 2022 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Husband’s fantasies have opposite effect on wife

DEAR ABBY: I have been married 30 years. Our marriage has been a happy one. My husband supports me through everything. Our problems come up in the bedroom. A few years ago, he wanted to add ...

DATE: Sep 27, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

It’s a gas: A case study in technology vs. familiarity

Dear Action Line: Peerless Tyre gas station is right across Main Avenue from a Speedway. Their signs display a constant gas war. I love Peerless ’cuz of, well, tradition. And the fact th...

DATE: Sep 26, 2022 | CATEGORY: Action Line

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