Columnists - The Durango Herald

Look out for the signs of heat illness

Living in the dry heat of the Southwest is one of the many advantages of Durango and surrounding communities. If you are like me, you enjoy our 300+ days of sunny skies and use your open win...

DATE: Jun 28, 2024 | CATEGORY: La Plata Health Watch

Celebrate local independent business on Independence Day

As we celebrate the anniversary of our national independence, it’s also a good time to celebrate how local independent businesses contribute to the strength of our communities. In forming a ...

DATE: Jun 28, 2024 | CATEGORY: Local First

‘By almost any measure, charter schools succeeding’

With all the challenges we face in Colorado, it was truly astonishing to see several Denver-area politicians introduce a bill this past legislative session attempting to tear down one of the...

DATE: Jun 28, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Truth in West: ‘Many wetlands result of irrigated agriculture’

Imagine Westerners waking up one morning only to discover that many of their most cherished wetlands have dried up, gone. This is not fiction during these times of determining the true value...

DATE: Jun 28, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Daughter cuts off contact with family

DEAR ABBY: My older daughter, “Brianna,” age 42, does not want anything to do with me or her brother and sister-in-law. She keeps me from my granddaughter, who is 17. I have been divorced si...

DATE: Jun 27, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

The trouble with tragedy

The first question in the first talkback on the first night of PlayFest was a bruiser. Wednesday night, the playwright, James Anthony Tyler, and the cast of his new play, “Hop Tha A” assembl...

DATE: Jun 27, 2024 | CATEGORY: Culture Gulch

Andy Frasco & The U.N. ‘bring a show’

Andy Frasco has been in the music business most of his life. The Los Angeles native however didn’t start in the biz as a musician, he started on the business side. “Falling in love with the...

DATE: Jun 26, 2024 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

‘Cannot cut our way to better care on backs of hospitals’

Coloradans are proudly among the healthiest and most active people in the nation. But that’s not to say that access to health care, a foundation of community health and wellness, always come...

DATE: Jun 26, 2024 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Rather than age, ‘pay attention to what old men have to say’

As you watch tomorrow’s presidential debate, here’s something we all should remember – the issue here is not, repeat not, about a candidate’s age. That’s especially true when both candidates...

DATE: Jun 26, 2024 | CATEGORY: Opinion

Wife refuses to repeat tall tales

DEAR ABBY: My husband of almost 40 years is not well. He has been a good provider, but his life stories are heavily laced with lies. That has been very difficult for me to live with. I belie...

DATE: Jun 25, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

Girlfriend finally calls it quits

DEAR ABBY: My girlfriend and I broke up after six years. Both of us have children from marriages that ended seven years ago. We reached a point a year and a half ago and started looking for ...

DATE: Jun 25, 2024 | CATEGORY: Dear Abby

In the mountain park: Access to aliens, and a long-ago fire

Dear Action Line: When I hike up into Overend Mountain Park, at the top of one of the many hills there is a slab of concrete, much like a house foundation, as well as a rusted-out metal ...

DATE: Jun 24, 2024 | CATEGORY: Action Line

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