Columnists - The Durango Herald

San Juan Brewfest tickets on sale now

I have been involved with the San Juan Brewfest event since 2008. Over the past 15 years, this event has grown into a major fundraiser for United Way of Southwest Colorado and an event with ...

DATE: Jul 29, 2022 | CATEGORY: What's Up Downtown

Employees sacrifice for dying co-worker

DEAR ABBY: A co-worker has been stricken with multiple stage-4 cancers. We all have been compassionate and caring, supporting him through the challenges of treatment and the side effects. Hi...

DATE: Jul 29, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Wife’s smoking addiction clouds future

DEAR ABBY: I have been married to my wife for 32 years. I love her dearly. Recently, though, her smoking has been really bothering me. Her father passed away from COPD five years ago because...

DATE: Jul 29, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Turn on comfort TV, turn off the strife

Like you, I can watch anything I want to on television right now. Between cable, streaming and YouTube, I can experience any adventure, get involved in any romance or inhabit any world I fee...

DATE: Jul 29, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Durango Brass builds on tradition

A town needs a brass band. Something with trumpets and cornets, French horns, euphoniums, trombones and tubas. Back in the day, it was common for each small town throughout the West to have...

DATE: Jul 28, 2022 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Wife driven into arms of old boyfriend

DEAR ABBY: I have been married to my husband, “Jim,” for three years, but we have been together for seven. It hasn’t been an easy road for us. I love him, but he doesn’t give me the attentio...

DATE: Jul 26, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Hurrah for peace-bringing construction zone

Dear Action Line: Is it possible to designate a road as being a permanent construction zone? Since utility work began several weeks ago on Junction Street the traffic has never been calm...

DATE: Jul 25, 2022 | CATEGORY: Action Line

Keystone Pipeline won’t make gas cheaper

Ever since boycotts started blocking Russian petroleum products, social media has been rife with memes that blame rising gasoline prices on “the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline.” Examp...

DATE: Jul 23, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

New platform lets your voice be heard

If you’re a La Plata County resident, we want to hear from you. Visit Durango’s new engagement platform, engage.durango.org, provides an online avenue for city and county residents to share...

DATE: Jul 22, 2022 | CATEGORY: The Tourism Effect

Husband’s secret life revealed

DEAR ABBY: I have been married for 23 years. About a year ago, our 22-year-old daughter became suspicious that her dad might be having an affair. She found out it was true through his text m...

DATE: Jul 22, 2022 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Fear of wolves rooted in myth

Wolves are coming to Colorado and, so far, I have not witnessed people preparing for their arrival. Letters appear in local papers, suggesting that ranchers will be the victims once wolves r...

DATE: Jul 22, 2022 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Music in the Mountains Pops Night: The Magical Music of Harry Potter

Great American Cinema would be nothing without its scores. The man behind many of those familiar film scores is the great John Williams, who has written some of the most iconic themes for so...

DATE: Jul 21, 2022 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

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