This weekend, when hundreds of the best ropers in the world converge on Salado for the annual Wildfire Ranch Open to the World, many of them will be pulling Bloomer Trailers behind their trucks.

For many, it will be a homecoming of sorts as the Bloomer Trailers make it back from places around the country to our small central Texas town where they have been made since 2002.

Randy Bloomer launched the brand in 1998 in LaMarque, in the heart of chemical alley outside Houston. At the time, Bloomer and wife Kim were living in League City. He was a top salesman for a retail trailer dealer. \

“I had sold out of my inventory for the next several months,” Bloomer said, adding that he approached a manufacturer with the idea of building to-of-the-line trailers for the cutting horse riders and ropers.

Bloomer designed his first trailer in 1997. He showed the designs to manufacturers but none were interested in investing, so he went out on his own.

Bloomer recalls taking one of the first Bloomer trailers to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. “I sold 20 that weekend,” he said.

“I had business relationships from my years in retail sales that trusted me enough to buy this new product,” Randy said.

“If you do what you say you’re going to do, you will be rewarded for it,” he said.

And what Bloomer said they were going to do was to build the best trailer in the market.

Today that remains true. “We are still trying to build the best trailer we can,” he said, adding that the ideal keeps changing and improving.

Which is why the newest line of trailers from Bloomer is The Evolution.

“We have never stopped challenging ourselves to find a better or safer way to protect our customers and their livestock,” he stated. Naming the new model The Evolution  “was to remind ourselves that we have yet to build the perfect trailer, so we keep working on ideas.”

Because of the quality of the trailers, many of the earliest models remain on the road.

Today, trailers number 003 and 004 are still on the road. “We didn’t make an 001 or 002,” Randy says. Trailer 003 is in Las Vegas and 004 is in Arizona.

And so the brand — which has come to be an iconic one in the western world — was launched.

Sage Kimzey, two-time world champion bull rider, signed on recently to represent the Bloomer Trailers brand.

In the past two seasons, the 21 year old is the only bull rider to ever win the World Title in both his rookie and sophomore seasons. Including his World Championships, Kimzey has a CBR World Title, the Ram Top Gun Award and has won several of the prestigious rodeos including San Antonio, Rodeo Houston, the Calgary Stampede and the Pendleton Round-Up.

“He (Kimzey) is a great ambassador for the sport of rodeo,” Bloomer said in the announcement of Kimzey as the brand ambassador. “What you don’t hear about is his willingness to make himself available to visit hospitals or other charities when he is in the area. All of these qualities are representative of the kind of person we want wearing our brand.”

Kimzey was on the Bloomer High School Rodeo Team and competed for the company at the IFYR in Shawnee Oklahoma.

“The passion and love that is put into making every trailer reflects in the final product,” Kimzey said in the announcement.

The Bloomer brand is one that has been built over the years. “Customers have shown faith in us to build the best and that is what we try to do every day,” Bloomer said. “I wake up in the morning thinking what can I do to make a better trailer.”

He brought that work ethic with him when he moved from LaMarque to Salado 15 years ago.

In 2002, the Bloomers moved to Salado, where Kim and Randy raised their two children Alexis and Jake, who are both graduates of Salado High School.

They brought with them several of employees from the LaMaque plant. “We brought about 40 families up to this area,” Bloomer said.

That includes Mirna Carmona, who has been with Bloomer Trailers for 19 years, and Richard Black, who has been with Bloomer for 18 years.

It takes about a week for a trailer to be built from start to finish in the 60,000 sq. ft. facility located just south of  Salado on Holland Rd. on I-35.

The trailer is built as a shell and the living quarters are customized to the customer’s desire.

Bloomer Trailers are customized by Outlaw Conversions in Stephenville and Trailboss Conversions in Missouri.

“It’s up to the dealers who they use for the customization,” Bloomer said.

Bloomer Trailers are sold at 15 dealers across the nation, including P&P Trailer Sales located next door to the manufacturing plant.