Columnists - The Durango Herald

Vegetable oils: The hidden dangers in your kitchen

When it comes to vegetables, it’s generally not difficult to determine which ones are good for you, right? Unfortunately, this simplicity doesn’t carry over to vegetable oils. Today, let’s s...

DATE: Oct 9, 2024 | CATEGORY: Healing Nutrition

‘Yes’ to proposed Montezuma County sales tax

It’s been said that “the only certainties in this life are death and taxes,” and the general consensus is that neither is desirable. Why have people come to hate taxes? Partly because the U....

DATE: Oct 8, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

League of Women Voters: Embed abortion rights into Colorado’s Constitution

For 104 years, the League of Women Voters has been empowering voters through nonpartisan voter education, engagement and, where necessary, litigation to ensure voters’ rights. Simultaneously...

DATE: Oct 8, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Door stays shut when girlfriend visits

DEAR ABBY: My 18-year-old stepdaughter has decided to date another female. She has dated boys in the past, but that’s not the issue. We have nothing against the LGBTQ community. (My husband’...

DATE: Oct 8, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Trout of a thousand casts

The experience of being alone in nature can make up for a lack of catches

DATE: Oct 6, 2024 | CATEGORY: Sports

Welcoming in all that old age includes

As we age into our later years, it seems there are more and more difficulties to face. Friends are ill or dying or moving away, we are having an increased number of trips to all kinds of doc...

DATE: Oct 6, 2024 | CATEGORY: Authentic Aging

Misplaced ring leads to misplaced blame

DEAR ABBY: A longtime neighbor and friend has accused me of stealing a ring. I had been providing her with transportation to visit her husband while he was in rehab recovering from a broken ...

DATE: Oct 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

‘Together, we can make a difference’

My name is Ellen Angeles, and I am running for CD3 State Board of Education. As a recently retired teacher with over 20 years of experience, a parent and a longtime advocate for public educa...

DATE: Oct 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

‘I am passionate about education’

My name is Sherri Wright and I am running for the State Board of Education. There are four things you need to know about me and my beliefs: I am passionate about education. I believe ...

DATE: Oct 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

What is Project 2025?

We’re hearing a lot about Project 2025, but what is it? It is an 887-page recommendation of policy changes for a conservative president based on the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leaders...

DATE: Oct 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Making family planning available to all people

The Cairo Conference “Programme of Action” includes a statement that all people should have the right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children. Unhappily, ma...

DATE: Oct 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Population Matters

Relatives like to drop in unannounced

DEAR ABBY: Some relatives come once or twice a year from out of state to stay at my in-laws’ house. For the past 20-plus years, it has been the same routine. They show up, but we never know ...

DATE: Oct 4, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

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