Columnists - The Durango Herald

Wannabe Denver TV viewers seem ‘Designated’ to suffer

Dear Action Line: Any news why we’ve lost Denver TV again? Both the Fox (KDVR 31) and ABC (KMGH 17) affiliates are gone from DirecTV offerings. So sad. It seems like so many people worke...

DATE: Jul 8, 2024 | CATEGORY: Action Line

SetSetSet, or hook setting, is last part of landing fish

Six years ago, I looked it up, I wrote a column about setting the hook when fly fishing. I need to remind myself every time I’m on the water how to correctly set a hook, I thought maybe you ...

DATE: Jul 7, 2024 | CATEGORY: Sports

What are the best baseball films? Connie Mack coaches weigh in

Baseball on the big screen has made for some great and not so great moments

DATE: Jul 7, 2024 | CATEGORY: Sports

‘Truest form of patriotism, a love that isn’t complacent’

Patriotism did not bring my grandfather to the Army recruiter’s office in 1956. Poverty did. A youth spent picking cotton and working odd jobs to help feed his family meant that he was a goo...

DATE: Jul 7, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

‘Baby-boomer cohorts lazy about issues we cared so passionately about’

I will forever be grateful to our former public defender, a man I greatly admire, a man who helped change my life for the better. Back in the late 1980s, I taught a class at Durango High Sch...

DATE: Jul 7, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

‘Rooted in long-standing traditions of hunting, fishing, exploring wild places’

As a proud member of the Colorado chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and a proponent of the Sportsmen for the Dolores coalition, I am writing to voice my strong support for the designa...

DATE: Jul 7, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Aging father has made plans for assets

DEAR ABBY: I'm a single retired grandfather in the South. My daughter, 50, has hitched her wagon to an alcoholic. She’s circling the drain and going down with him. My grandsons are adults an...

DATE: Jul 6, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Grandma feels slighted by stolen nickname

DEAR ABBY: We have five grandchildren. All but one call me MeeMaw. I’ve been MeeMaw since my first grandchild was born 15 years ago. Four years ago, our third grandchild was born, and the fo...

DATE: Jul 6, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Online acquaintance wants to get closer

DEAR ABBY: I’m a 70-year-old Black woman who looks about 45 or 50. I recently met a man online while playing dominoes. We have been chatting back and forth for about two weeks now. He is 44,...

DATE: Jul 6, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

On wolves: Ballot box ‘right framework for ethical issues’

Since the passage of Proposition 114, which mandated the restoration of gray wolves to Colorado, there has been a steady stream of condemnation of what critics, including some members of the...

DATE: Jul 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

‘Taught to think with our wallets, not our brains’

After the first presidential debate, the whole nation is panicked because one candidate can’t stop lying and the other can’t stop stuttering . . . because all we have left is a choice betwee...

DATE: Jul 5, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Harm reduction: A response to substance use and overdoses

La Plata County Public Health Department’s Harm Reduction program is a response to the rise in opioid-related overdoses both nationally and within La Plata County. Overdose deaths have more ...

DATE: Jul 3, 2024 | CATEGORY: Creating Community

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