Seventy-six longhorns led the big parade?

Rosa Ramirez, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 10, 2007 at midnight

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Dozens of children jumped, clapped and oohed as Texas longhorns stomped through streets of downtown Denver during the National Western Stock Show Parade.

The parade, one of the stock show's annual kickoff events, started at Union Station and traveled along 17th Street during Tuesday's lunch hour.

Hundreds of spectators crowded along several blocks of 17th Street before the parade got under way.

In addition to the longhorns, the parade featured marching bands, floats and and numerous horseback riders, but it was the wide-brimmed cattle that elicited the loudest gasps from parade goers.

Megan Gebhardt, a teacher at The Children's Center at Parker Hill United Methodist Church, said children from the center were on a field trip to learn more about horses and other animals. The center takes the youngsters to the parade each year, and they also travel to the stock show, Gebhardt said.

"They enjoy coming to the parade. They'll be talking about this all year long," she said.

For 4-year-old Tanner Spreeuw, the "horsies" and tractors were the highlight of the parade.

"I liked the horses with people on them. I went to a farm last night," he said.

Tanner said the tractors in the parade "look like my toys."

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