Columnists - The Durango Herald

Cultivating your image of success

What will it feel like? For many of us, optimal health or our individual “peak state” has always been a far off dream. It’s been a dream that has been at our side for years – sinc...

DATE: Dec 16, 2020 | CATEGORY: Strength in Well-being

Living with ex-husband a nightmare

Dear Abby: Although I have been divorced from my ex for eight years, we still live together. There is not – nor will there ever be – more than a platonic relationship between us, and I h...

DATE: Dec 15, 2020 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Dugald Owen: The reasoned view, acceptance of uncertainties mark maturity

Editor’s note: Fort Lewis College held its second virtual commencement on Dec. 4, when 150 students gathered online to hear recorded speeches. Professor Dugald Owen gave the commencement...

DATE: Dec 14, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Driveway tolls: The new rage?

Dear Rookie Action Line: Wait, you again? – A. Ego Dear A.: Well, yeah. What do you mean by that? We thought you skedaddled about a decade ago. You’re still in town? You...

DATE: Dec 14, 2020 | CATEGORY: Action Line

Dustin Bleizeffer: One state still craves coal

As the rest of the West rushes to meet increasingly ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions, one state is moving in exactly the opposite direction. It’s Wyoming, which even wa...

DATE: Dec 13, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Jupiter, Saturn to converge in the ‘Great Conjunction’ on Dec. 21

Greetings, stargazers. Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard there will be a “Great Conjunction” between Jupiter and Saturn on Dec. 21. Jupiter and Sa...

DATE: Dec 13, 2020 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Paul Krugman: Learn to stop worrying and embrace debt

Amid all the wild swings in U.S. politics over the past decade, one thing has remained constant: the GOP position on government debt. The party considers high levels of debt an existential t...

DATE: Dec 13, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Lost and hungry scouts: A Mormon Christmas story

During the Christmas season of 1879, four Mormon scouts navigated the treacherous canyons of Utah to establish Bluff

DATE: Dec 12, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Why we should consider ourselves lucky this year

This November marked my one-year anniversary of having moved to Durango. Wow, what a year it’s been. When I had just about settled into my new home ... BAM! COVID-19 cascaded over...

DATE: Dec 12, 2020 | CATEGORY: The Tourism Effect

Standing up for public lands in the face of mounting challenges

This year, getting outside became a lifeline for Americans of all stripes, and our public lands became more popular than ever. For me, a long hike anywhere on our public lands is...

DATE: Dec 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Stewards of the Land

Looks and nudges on the Animas River

The high country is snowed-in, the Southern Ute Reservation and the San Juan River are closed, the lakes are icing over; the Animas is our fall-back. And, frankly, it is a good fall-back. ...

DATE: Dec 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Flies & Lies

Pandemic disproportionately impacts students with disabilities

This ongoing pandemic has caused challenges across all sectors and in everyone’s lives. Yet, we know that within each sector, the impact has not been equal. School closures and sh...

DATE: Dec 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

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