ProRodeo Sports News - August 5, 2022

Little brother, Ryan, is the main tooler besides Joe Smith. “We are just honest people,” Don King said. “That’s what grandpa always was. I work the front floor and I’m here eight days a week and I’m just trying to carry on that tradition. It is the cowboy way of life.” Customer Andre Coelho of San Paulo, Brazil, was thrilled to pay a visit to the store. “I was in Montana at Duck’s Lake, I spent the Fourth of July there with my family,” he said. “Then, I stopped by here in Sheridan and spent the night and spent the next day checking out stores. Then, I came into to King’s Saddlery because I had some friends tell me about the store. I do barrel racing futurity stuff. My kids barrel race. My wife barrel races. I’m friends with Junior Nogueira. He was at my house (recently). We are family friends, and he stays at my place outside of Denver. “I’m impressed with this store (King’s Saddlery). They had what I was looking, and I bought a cowboy hat.” King’s Saddlery and King Ropes stores also are mobile. “You see everybody at different rodeos, and we do trade shows,” Don said. “We take a trailer to Cheyenne Frontier Days, my brother Ryan and I went to the National High School Finals Rodeo, which was held in Gillette, Wyo., this year. We had a 10x40-foot booth there. We will then go the National Finals Rodeo (in Las Vegas) and we will have a 10x80-foot both there and we are at the Stetson Cowboy Christmas at the Rio. The first year we went to the NFR was in 1994 and we have been going every year since. As soon as we get done with the summer we are prepping to go to Vegas.” BEST SELLERS There’s no question King’s Saddlery and King Ropes is known for saddles and ropes, but those aren’t the best sellers for the business. “Dad gets upset, but usually caps and T-shirts and hoodies are the best sellers,” Don said. “We sell plenty of rope, but you have the tourists who are traveling from Salt Lake City, Utah to Rapid City (S.D.) to see Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone and Devils Tower and then the Cody (Wyo.) Nightly Rodeo is going on and they come right through Sheridan. Dad (Bruce) saw people wearing Caterpillar and John Deere caps, so they came up with one that if you bought a certain amount of rope they threw in a free cap in the box. We sell three to four more times of caps than we do ropes. It is something that is out of control. “This town is insane when the WYO Rodeo comes through (in July). We have been busy since the first part of April. There was a line of people out outside to the alley just trying to check out, out front.” designed a machine that twists nylon thread,” Don said. “Polypropylene we buy from Japan and polygrass we buy from Portugal. The nylon we buy 80 percent in 600-foot coils, and you have to either cut it to length, or put it in the hot room here during colder months otherwise we take it out to a rope field, which is out east of town. You put out the 600-foot coils and get the kinks out and let it lie straight and cut it to length and bring it in here put the knots in it and the honda and tie the burner in there and stamp it with King. DETAILS ABOUT THE ROPE PROCESS “Rope-wise we make 20 percent of our own. Grandpa

A CELEBRITY HOT SPOT King’s Saddlery and King Ropes has become a worldwide phenomenon – so it should come as no surprise the celebrities that have walked through those doors. Like true royalty. The Queen of England paid the store a visit in 1984. “I got to shake her hand,” Don King

said. “She was visiting the Wallop family. One of her horse trainers over in England was related to the Wallop family. Malcolm Wallop used to be a senator for the state of Wyoming. She landed here and went to Ritz Sporting Goods and then us. Scotland Yard came through and had their dogs go

Queen Elizabeth

through. I was 13 when that happened.” Other celebrities who were visitors to the store include late music legend Prince. “He played a concert here back in the 1980s,” King said. “Some lady was the 10,000th caller on MTV and it was the debut of the film he made Under the Cherry Moon (which debuted in July of 1986). They played it at the movie theatre and then they had a big party at the old Holiday Inn. He walked through (King’s Saddlery) here. I don’t remember if he bought anything,” Tommy Lee Jones comes out to Sheridan to play polo and comes in the store, as did late actors Brian Dennehy and Wilford Brimley. One of the most trending superstar actors right now –

Johnny Depp – also has ties to King Ropes as he has been seen many times wearing a King Ropes hat, including at a Miami Dolphins game. “My little brother (Ryan) and I worked in yachting and right after they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp chartered the boat my brother worked on,” Don said. “They were in the Bahamas and Ryan is out getting the dew off the boat in the morning and he was wearing a King

Depp

Ropes hat. Johnny Depp then told my brother, King Ropes, that’s my favorite hat to wear. He then asked my brother, ‘Where did you get it?’ My brother told him, ‘I’m Ryan King.’ What was neat about that is mom sent a bunch of hats to the Bahamas just to give to Johnny Depp and his guests who were onboard. Then, at the time Johnny Depp owned the Viper Room in Los Angeles. All of sudden, Ryan and I received all these boxes at our apartment in West Palm Beach. It was one of everything from his boutique store in the Viper Room. “We got hats, jackets, T-shirts, and a handwritten letter from Johnny Depp to my brother. That was pretty cool.” – Tracy Renck

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