Health - The Durango Herald

Overcoming Opioids: The quest for less addictive drugs

Tummy tucks really hurt. Doctors carve from hip to hip, slicing off skin, tightening muscles, tugging at innards. Patients often need strong painkillers for days or even weeks, but Mary Hern...

DATE: Apr 19, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

Survey shows why doctors choose medicine and the challenges they face

She was just 15 when it happened. She started having trouble breathing when she ran cross-country, and she felt intense itching on her body, especially her lower limbs. She would stay up all...

DATE: Apr 10, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

Long-term aspirin use associated with reduced risk of dying from cancer

Long-term use of aspirin is associated with lower risk of dying from various types of cancers, including colorectal, lung, breast and prostate cancer, according to a study presented at the 2...

DATE: Apr 8, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

A diet that’s beneﬁcial to everyone but used by few

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (aka the DASH diet) is celebrating 20 years of helping people with hypertension and pre-hypertension lower blood pressure just as well as some medicat...

DATE: Apr 5, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

Most young people say government should pay for health care

WASHINGTON – Most young Americans want any health care overhaul under President Donald Trump to look a lot like the Affordable Care Act signed into law by his predecessor, President Barack O...

DATE: Apr 4, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

A ‘sci-fi’ cancer therapy fights brain tumors, study finds

WASHINGTON – It sounds like science fiction, but a cap-like device that makes electric fields to fight cancer improved survival for the first time in more than a decade for people with deadl...

DATE: Apr 3, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

U.S. enrolls volunteers in large test of possible Zika vaccine

WASHINGTON – U.S. health officials have begun enrolling volunteers for critical next-stage testing of an experimental vaccine to protect against Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that can cause...

DATE: Apr 2, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

Brain and arm implants help paralyzed man feed himself

LONDON – A paralyzed man was able to feed himself for the first time in eight years, after doctors implanted sensors in his brain that sent signals to his arm. Bill Kochevar was p...

DATE: Apr 1, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

Southwest Colorado Community College expands nursing programs

Community college to offer bachelor’s degrees

DATE: Mar 30, 2017 | CATEGORY: Local News

FDA approves 1st drug for aggressive multiple sclerosis

TRENTON, N.J. – U.S. regulators have approved the first drug for an aggressive kind of multiple sclerosis that steadily reduces coordination and the ability to walk. The Food and ...

DATE: Mar 29, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

FDA approves 1st drug for moderate and severe eczema cases

TRENTON, N.J. – U.S. regulators have approved the first powerful, injected medicine to treat serious cases of the skin condition eczema. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesda...

DATE: Mar 28, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

Death rates up for middle age whites with little education

WASHINGTON – A sobering portrait of less-educated middle-age white Americans emerged Thursday with new research showing them dying disproportionately from what one expert calls “deaths of de...

DATE: Mar 27, 2017 | CATEGORY: Health

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