Columnists - The Durango Herald

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

New kitten brings comfort, conflict

Dear Abby: My 34-year-old daughter lives with me to get ahead on her student loans. She has a good job, pays rent and has a serious boyfriend. My niece, her cousin, recently ...

DATE: Dec 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Charles Blow: How Black people learned not to trust government and medical systems

It would appear that the people in American hit hardest by COVID-19 – Black people – are also the group most leery about the prospects of a vaccine. As a Pew Research report publi...

DATE: Dec 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Merely Players theater company finds home

Merely Players, our shining, home-grown, and carefully-nurtured local theater company, has finally found a home. “Right now, our new space is simply a large storage area,” said c...

DATE: Dec 10, 2020 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Records of the Year Part 1: Nos. 10 to six

The bulk of 2020’s forced isolation left many with nothing to do but bake bread, do push-ups and listen to music. Or perhaps that is what your 2019 and every year before was like. ...

DATE: Dec 10, 2020 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Dad’s girlfriend upsets daughter

Dear Abby: I’m really uncomfortable about my father’s new relationship. He is 50 and dating a girl who is 19 – only two years older than I am. She went to my high school. I t...

DATE: Dec 10, 2020 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

This holiday season, give the gifts that keep on giving

Are you at a loss for ideas of gifts to give this holiday season? Remember that gifts can take shape in many forms. And the greatest gifts come from the heart. Sometimes, a meanin...

DATE: Dec 9, 2020 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

Make sure stress doesn’t throw away all your nutrients

Do this with me, breathe in deep through your nose and out slowly through your mouth. (Repeat three times.) It’s been a peculiar year to say the least! With the COVID-19 pandemic,...

DATE: Dec 9, 2020 | CATEGORY: Healing Nutrition

Boyfriend’s true colors are revealed

Dear Abby: I need your opinion. I have been with the same guy for 27 years. We never married because we were both married before, and I wasn’t into doing it again. I have stuck by him th...

DATE: Dec 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

John Simpson: School board veils intent, cost of bonds approved in recent election

While I am pleased that the School District 9-R bond issue passed in the November election, I am concerned with the subterfuge planned for the next step of the process. The school board told...

DATE: Dec 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Action Line passes the torch

Dear Action Line: Is it true you took a job with city and are giving up the column? – Dazed and Confused Dear Dazed: It is true. This is my final column. I have taken a job with the ci...

DATE: Dec 7, 2020 | 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