Columnists - The Durango Herald

Healthier baking this holiday season

It’s that time of year when we dust off grandma’s favorite recipes to create home-cooked meals and treats to nourish our souls through the holiday season. Many dread this time of year becau...

DATE: Nov 9, 2021 | CATEGORY: Healing Nutrition

Holidays prime time for thank-you notes

DEAR ABBY: You often respond to grandparents who are disappointed that their grandchildren have not written a note to express gratitude for a recent present. Personally, I think one of the m...

DATE: Nov 9, 2021 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Get a comprehensive – and fun – education in gardening

Most nights, as we all sit down at the dinner table, I try out my dad jokes. Ninety-nine percent of the time the kids love them, Beth cannot stop laughing and they ask for more. It is amazin...

DATE: Nov 8, 2021 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

The collaborative approach: Conversations with our next generation

Before taking the role as executive director for the Collaborative, I was fortunate to be the director of career and college counseling at Animas High School. As I reflect on this first fall...

DATE: Nov 6, 2021 | CATEGORY: Columnists

What about us, those without a terminal illness?

Some of us are starting to think seriously about our demise, the end of our lives, the inevitable. Colorado’s law since 2016, the Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID) is comforting. If we have a...

DATE: Nov 6, 2021 | CATEGORY: Authentic Aging

Digging deep for optimal nutrition

Root vegetables can be intimidating. Most of them have thick, strange-looking skin and can look like they’re from outer space. Some root vegetables are given the cold shoulder because they h...

DATE: Nov 5, 2021 | CATEGORY: Nourishing Morsels

Single woman struggles to connect

DEAR ABBY: I have been living in a 55-plus community in Florida for several years. I’m a single woman, and I moved here for the weather and to meet new friends. In this community, there are ...

DATE: Nov 5, 2021 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

5- to 11-year-olds eligible for COVID vaccine, booster updates and More

This week’s authorization of Pfizer vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a tremendous step forward for our community, and for supporting safe i...

DATE: Nov 5, 2021 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

Shop where your home is

You’ve heard about supply chain issues and how it could affect holiday purchases so buy your presents early. My message is a little different but just as impactful – if not more so. This yea...

DATE: Nov 5, 2021 | CATEGORY: From the Chamber

GA-20 plays the blues at ACT

When guitar player Matthew Stubbs found himself with a year off from touring, he wasn’t going to pine away the time doing nothing. It was 2018, and Stubbs’ then full-time job was playing gu...

DATE: Nov 4, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Americans will always revere mustangs

For a professor of history, Andrew Gulliford sure seems to have forgotten plenty of it. Or perhaps he only remembers the history that fits the narrative of his curiously callous anti-mustang...

DATE: Nov 4, 2021 | CATEGORY: Opinion

The Chief belongs in a museum

The oversized, cartoon sign of an American Indian pointing to a place of business has outlived its moment. The Chief belongs in a museum not on a downtown street. He belongs with his histori...

DATE: Nov 3, 2021 | 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