Columnists - The Durango Herald

Melissa Youssef: The most thoroughly vetted Durango budget in years

Each December, City Council fulfills one of its most important responsibilities – approving a budget for the coming year. In council’s view, the budget should be directly linked t...

DATE: Dec 13, 2019 | CATEGORY: From the Mayor

Give the gift of time in nature this holiday season

Does anybody else feel like the shortened time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year has taken an already busy time of year and sent it into hyperdrive? If Noel Night was ...

DATE: Dec 12, 2019 | CATEGORY: Durango Nature Studies

People We Know release new album

It’s not rare for informal jam sessions to give rise to a band. You have a loose configuration of people who get together to play music in a no-pressure environment with no concr...

DATE: Dec 12, 2019 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Ready to make the perfect cookie? Welcome to cookie chemistry 101

One for me, two for you and plate of carrots for the reindeer. The carrots are easy, it’s the cookies that can be finicky. Once you get past the challenge of deciding on a style,...

DATE: Dec 12, 2019 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

As passenger dissatisfaction soars, airline fines hit a historic low

This year, the government is on track to issue the lowest number of airline fines in history. Federal regulators insist they’re just doing their job and that the numbers represen...

DATE: Dec 12, 2019 | CATEGORY: The Travel Troubleshooter

Michelle Goldberg: The thrilling shock of the movie ‘Queen & Slim’

I left a recent matinée of “Queen & Slim,” the mesmerizing new outlaw romance directed by Melina Matsoukas, astonished on two levels. The film kept me rapt; I cried through the end and left ...

DATE: Dec 11, 2019 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Finding relief from holiday heartburn

When you’re dealing with acid reflux, heartburn or gastroesophageal reflux disease, it can make your favorite meals ... unenjoyable. The pain associated with these conditions is s...

DATE: Dec 11, 2019 | CATEGORY: Healing Nutrition

Climate change a threat to Durango’s community forest

I had the pleasure this past week of attending a daylong workshop about climate change and how it could potentially affect Durango’s community forest. I have to say, the organizin...

DATE: Dec 9, 2019 | CATEGORY: From the Extension Office

Trish Pegram; The 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage arrives

Most of us now believe it is the right and duty of all citizens of the U.S. to register and vote. But this has not always been so. As originally written, our Constitution gave mos...

DATE: Dec 9, 2019 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Lines on La Posta Road are a black-and-white issue

What’s up with the black line painted on La Posta Road (County Road 213)? Is this a new traffic feature that drivers need to be aware of? – Larry Zauberis Generally speaking, driv...

DATE: Dec 9, 2019 | CATEGORY: Action Line

Frank Bruni: Thinking of building a wall? Jared is on the case!

Jared Kushner just got a promotion. Another one. And it’s perfect. The pallid princeling is now responsible for speeding construction of the border wall. Josh Dawsey and Nick Miro...

DATE: Dec 8, 2019 | CATEGORY: Frank Bruni

Watching the Mercury transit and seeing our fragile condition

Fort Lewis College professor Charlie Hakes, who writes the astronomy column for The Durango Herald, set up a solar telescope with two different viewing lenses and filters in the third-floor ...

DATE: Dec 7, 2019 | CATEGORY: Authentic Aging

Photos: Durango High School boys golf competes at stateDemons finished 14th after two rounds at Fox Hill Club in Longmont

Demons finished 14th after two rounds at Fox Hill Club in Longmont

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