Columnists - The Durango Herald

Tractor revs up fine-art ideas

Dear Action Line: What’s up with the red tractor sitting in the grass on the east side of Florida Road in the 900 block? Is it art? Is it historic? – No traction Dear Traction: T...

DATE: Aug 10, 2020 | CATEGORY: Action Line

W.S. Robinson: Climbing walls in the West while sitting in a chair

Reclining in my favorite chair recently in vanishingly small Inez, Wyoming, I found myself close to tears. My wife, Maria, sat beside me to ask what was troubling me. ...

DATE: Aug 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Bringing price relief and accountability to healthcare

It’s been a long, winding road since January 2018 when Local First received impassioned feedback at our annual meeting that the price of healthcare, and health insurance premiums in particul...

DATE: Aug 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Local First

The Other Four Corners: High in the San Juan National Forest four counties meet

Most everyone has been to the Four Corners Monument with its outdoor concrete patio and granite-and-bronze circle. Tourists sprawl in contorted positions to get both hands and both feet in e...

DATE: Aug 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Gulliford's Travels

Inside constellation Lyra, scope out a double-double

Greetings, Stargazers. As I write this, we have just finished a much-needed monsoon week. But today the clouds are gone, and the afternoon temperature is back into the 90s. It de...

DATE: Aug 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Why we are still planning our December event, and why it matters

I hope you are familiar with the annual Festival of Trees event by Community Connections. If not, I will offer you a quick rundown: Dozens of local businesses, organizations and individuals ...

DATE: Aug 7, 2020 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

Move prompts friend to reveal feelings

Dear Abby: I have been in love with my best friend for two years. We met at a summer camp where we were both working and we hated each other in the beginning. During the process of worki...

DATE: Aug 7, 2020 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

David Brooks: Nonconformity must have a future; we need it

Like other realms, American intellectual life has been marked by a series of exclusions. The oldest and vastest was the exclusion of people of color from the commanding institutio...

DATE: Aug 7, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Tim Birchard never stops the music

Write, record and release. That’s the pattern for local musician Tim Birchard, a pattern he’s followed for the past decade or so with regards to his music career – “career” being a loose ter...

DATE: Aug 6, 2020 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Worker’s guilt remains 40 years later

Dear Abby: About 40 years ago, I did someone an injustice, and I have felt guilty ever since. I worked for a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., that fired an accounting clerk who was i...

DATE: Aug 6, 2020 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Pandemic escape: Sharing public lands during COVID-19

I, like many of you, have been connecting more than ever via social media in order to fill the void left by lack of real interaction. But some of the things I read make me wonder if we have ...

DATE: Aug 5, 2020 | CATEGORY: Stewards of the Land

Reduce your food bill and eat healthy with these thrifty tips

For the sixth week in a row, I’ve left the grocery store with a touch of sticker shock. The first few occasions, I blamed it on the purchase of higher-priced items you need only ...

DATE: Aug 5, 2020 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

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