Columnists - The Durango Herald

San Juan Basin Public Health’s 1-year anniversary of COVID-19 response

With the one-year mark of San Juan Basin Public Health’s emergency response to COVID-19 at hand, we are looking back over the course of the last 12 months to reflect on the impact of the pan...

DATE: Mar 5, 2021 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

Rep. Barbara McLachlan: Playing “Mother, May I?” and “High Hurdles”

My last few weeks have been filled with Zooms, phone calls and research concerning a Legislative Game combining “Mother, May I?” with the High Hurdles. It’s been grueling and chal...

DATE: Mar 5, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Fort Lewis College and the performing arts

It’s a trend. All over the country, college and universities are merging music and theater departments. Fort Lewis College is already interviewing for a new position in musical th...

DATE: Mar 4, 2021 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Bands to play fundraiser for Carol Clark

If you’re a Durango local, it’s likely you’ve met Carol Clark. Maybe you met her in the early days of Durango Farmers Market, the now Saturday morning summer staple she started 2...

DATE: Mar 4, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Paul Krugman: Too much choice is a bad thing

Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, is clearly what my father would have called a piece of work. Early in the pandemic he made headlines by saying that older Americans ...

DATE: Mar 4, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Relationship is more off than on

Dear Abby: I have been on and off with a man for two years. In all this time, he has never spent a holiday or Valentine’s Day with me, or introduced me to his family or friends. He told ...

DATE: Mar 2, 2021 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

A youthful resolution to snowed-in fire hydrants

Dear Action Line: I think I have the solution for kids who are bored, being left at home to do homework in the days of COVID. This might make them happy and be beneficial for the town. K...

DATE: Mar 1, 2021 | CATEGORY: Action Line

Vaccines can help combat COVID-19 variants

In a little more than a year since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, more than 500,000 American lives have been lost. We passed this grim number within the last week. As...

DATE: Feb 28, 2021 | CATEGORY: La Plata Health Watch

Dan Harms: How reliable is our power supply in Southwest Colorado?

It has been an epic month for the national power grid, with severe weather causing rolling blackouts in Texas and widespread power outages across the United States. In the wake of...

DATE: Feb 27, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Charles Blow: Four great migrations are underway

The humanitarian and infrastructure disaster that followed Texas’ winter storm illustrates that catastrophic weather events may soon become less freak occurrences and more part of an unremit...

DATE: Feb 27, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Jenn Lopez: Calling for a bold, comprehensive affordable housing strategy

I can trace my career in affordable housing back to 1994 when I was a junior at Fort Lewis College and began plotting my permanent residency in Durango. Once I learned that the m...

DATE: Feb 27, 2021 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Focusing on the chamber’s three buckets

Our Chamber board and staff recently held our annual strategic planning retreat (virtual, of course, but it worked thanks to Sandhya Tillotson). Our annual retreat is our opportunity to revi...

DATE: Feb 27, 2021 | CATEGORY: From the Chamber

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