Columnists - The Durango Herald

District aims to build students’ mastery of skills, concepts

Welcome back to another great school year in Durango! Whether your child is attending one of our 9-R schools, one of our charter schools or one of our private education institutio...

DATE: Aug 19, 2018 | CATEGORY: Durango School News

Don’t make these car rental mistakes on your next vacation

Before you click the “book” button on your next car rental, consider what happened to Elizabeth Thorp on a recent trip from her home in Washington to Denver. When Thorp’s airline ...

DATE: Aug 19, 2018 | CATEGORY: The Travel Troubleshooter

Family casts doubt on couple

DEAR ABBY: I am in my late 20s and dating a man in his mid-30s whom I am crazy about. We have been dating for a year and are starting to discuss marriage and children. He’s kind, hard-wo...

DATE: Aug 19, 2018 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

The Village at Wolf Creek staggers onward

Are we doomed to the zombie Village at Wolf Creek endlessly stalking the San Juan Mountains? No matter how many times apparently dead, it seemingly staggers back to life, lurchin...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Thinking Green

What is Durango best known for?

What is Durango best known for? More specifically, why do prospective visitors choose Durango over other places they might want to visit? These and questions like these drive destination ma...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: The Tourism Effect

Baughman: When it comes to saving horses, we’re all winners

“A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence,” writes Pam Brown. ...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Rankin: What’s a teacher to do?

When I went off to college to learn to be a teacher, the responsibility of an elementary school teacher was mostly teaching “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic,” the three R’s. Soc...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Joyce Rankin

Elliott: My Durango is your Durango

My twin brother, Evan, and I got flipped off the other day by an elderly gentleman who thought we were in the way of his Durango – and no, he wasn’t driving a Dodge. We laughed a...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Egan: The silent green majority is fed up – and voting

If emotions were water, and you took all the heartbreak felt by the millions who followed the plight of a starving orca whale grieving over her dead calf, you’d have a river the size of the ...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Tim Egan

Hickenlooper: The state wants to help even if you’re not Amazon

Barn raising. Nothing else conveys the spirit of the West better than the tradition of joining together to build a neighbor’s barn. There may not be many barn-raisings nowadays, b...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Editorial cartoon

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Judith Reynolds Cartoon

Daughter’s birth returns memories of abuse

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are proud parents of our first child, a girl. Despite his excitement and pride, her arrival has caused his childhood sexual abuse by his stepfather to resurfa...

DATE: Aug 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

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