Cowboys come a dime a dozen every January with the National Western Stock Show. But calf-tying champion Maurice "Moe Betta" Wade stands as one of a kind in the crowd of rootin' tootin' caballeros in town this month.

Wade is the only Denver resident among the 30-plus ropers, barrel racers, bulldoggers and mutton busters who qualified to compete for a purse punched up with $34,000 in prize money in tonight's Martin Luther King Jr. African-American Heritage Rodeo of Champions.

The third annual National Western event is the only rodeo that salutes civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and honors the legacy of thousands of freed slaves who worked as cowboys in the American West following the Civil War.

"It's more about pride than anything - to educate people on the history of black cowboys," said Wade, who rides in rodeos across the country but said tonight's makes him feel mighty tall in the saddle.

"We want to educate folks about the real West. In movies, the black cowboys were cooks. You never saw them in key roles. Back then (in movies) there were no black Western heroes."

Hat planted hard and rope sailing, Wade and Spice Girl, his half-ton American quarter horse, will charge into the dirt-floored coliseum arena at up to 30 mph tonight, working to lasso and tie down a calf faster than anybody else, a feat that combines athleticism and horsemanship and pivots on luck.

Fit as a fiddle at 59, thanks to years of riding and roping, Wade has been cowboying since he was stationed at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center after a stint in Vietnam in the early 1970s. When a childhood love of playing cowboy in his native Mississippi was reignited on a trip to Montana, Wade came back to Colorado and volunteered at an Aurora livery stable in the middle of what then was cattle country.

"Next thing I knew, I had horses and cows and horse trailers and I'm running up and down the road, roping," Wade said. "I didn't realize there were any black cowboys. All I knew is I was the first one, or so I thought."

But the "rodeo family" is a small one, and he soon was introduced to the handful of other black cowboys who called Denver their home on the range. They helped Wade learn the ropes, so to speak.

The father of two grown sons and grandfather of one, Wade, who is single, lives in Montbello and rides a desk in downtown Denver for the U.S. Department of Agriculture when he's not on a horse.

His rodeo habit requires barrels of cash and long rides every morning and night to feed his two horses and a handful of "practice" calves that he boards east of Denver. He also commutes to an indoor practice arena in Limon in winter.

Wade remains one of only a "handful" of black Colorado cowboys today, said MLK rodeo founder Lu Vason.

Vason also produces the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, named for the first black cowboy voted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. That vote was in 1979, when the history of the black cowboy was just coming to light after being ignored by historians and pop culture for a century.

The Bill Pickett Invitational, the only touring black rodeo, will travel to 13 U.S. cities this year, ending with finals in Las Vegas in November.

As for Wade, who earned a buckle in 1985 as the Bill Pickett Rookie of the Year, he's hoping a good performance tonight will propel him and Spice Girl to a banner rodeo year. Getting to the November finals, Wade said, would be "like the Super Bowl."

Vason expects Wade to give the competition a run for the money tonight. "He's been practicing pretty hard," Vason said.

Spice Girl's been toeing the line, too, Wade said. "The animals have to practice like any athlete."

To go

* What: Martin Luther King Jr. African-American Heritage Rodeo of Champions

* When: 6 tonight

* Where: Denver Coliseum, 4600 Humboldt St.

* Tickets: Available at King Soopers

* Information: 303-373-1246