Columnists - The Durango Herald

Hand-pollinating can increase your vegetable yield

Editor’s note: Get Growing, written by the La Plata County Extension Office’s Master Gardener Program, appears during the growing season. It features timely tips and suggestions for your...

DATE: Jul 20, 2018 | CATEGORY: Get Growing

Learn how to age gracefully by watching your dog

By Al Winzerling Senior dogs don’t seem to whine, complain or tell us about their aches and pains, so it’s helpful to know what signs to watch for. Here are some of th...

DATE: Jul 20, 2018 | CATEGORY: From the Humane Society

Video games threaten relationship

DEAR ABBY: I am tired of taking a backseat to my boyfriend’s video game addiction. He comes home from work, sits on the couch and gets lost in his video games. It has gotten to the point...

DATE: Jul 20, 2018 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Widow struggles to start dating

DEAR ABBY: I was widowed seven years ago. When my husband died, I thought it was the end of my suffering. It had been a mentally and physically abusive marriage for 30 years. We were com...

DATE: Jul 19, 2018 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Littwin: Trump chooses Putin over country in Helsinki

For those keeping score at home, Donald Trump hit an all-time low in his post-summit news conference from Helsinki with his friend Vladimir Putin. This is not an overstatement. Th...

DATE: Jul 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Mike Littwin

Brooks: The murder-suicide of the West

When C.S. Lewis was a boy, his mother died. “With my mother’s death,” he wrote, “all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun...

DATE: Jul 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: David Brooks

Grandson asks about dating

DEAR ABBY: I have guardianship of my 12-year-old grandson. He has recently fallen head over heels for a girl in his class and wants to date her. I am out of touch with the younger genera...

DATE: Jul 18, 2018 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Goldberg: Trump shows the world he is Putin’s lackey

No matter how low your expectations for the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Monday, it was hard not to be staggered by the American president’s toady, slavish performance. ...

DATE: Jul 17, 2018 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Kristof: We may be able to get this man off death row

The horror began with a nighttime home invasion and the stabbings of a white family, and was compounded when sheriff’s deputies arrested and framed a black man for murder. That’s ...

DATE: Jul 17, 2018 | CATEGORY: Nicholas Kristof

Family dismisses special diet

DEAR ABBY: I am a diagnosed narcoleptic. Medication helps with the symptoms, but not entirely. I looked into alternative options and found a fantastic diet. I recently went on it with am...

DATE: Jul 17, 2018 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Mysterious trailer pops up on the radar screen

My husband and I saw this trailer on Missionary Ridge the other day. It’s by the transmission towers at the west end overlooking Durango. What is it and what’s it doing up there? – Michelle ...

DATE: Jul 16, 2018 | CATEGORY: Action Line

Share the harvest in this bumper-crop year for fruit trees

Editor’s note: Get Growing, written by the La Plata County Extension Office’s Master Gardener Program, appears during the growing season. It features timely tips and suggestions for your...

DATE: Jul 16, 2018 | CATEGORY: Get Growing

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