The hard-working, country-loving, West-opening figure was larger than life on the screen, but there was a lot drawn from real life, said Houston. "I was talking to a guy the other day who said he didn't know what would happen to America when all the ranchers were gone. People don't help each other any more, like the old ranchers did," he said. "The cowboys were our Saturday heroes. They expressed the values we want to honor. We want to honor that way of life."

In addition to Boxleitner and Horton, Adrian Booth will be on hand to accept her plaque. "She was honored last year, but she broke her hip and couldn't come," said Houston. "And we'll also be honoring Ronald Reagan, as a patriot and movie star."

So this makes at least two awards Boxleitner and Reagan share — they both received Golden Boot awards for their work in Westerns. Boxleitner also received the Buffalo Bill Award for "his commitment to family entertainment." He starred in several "Gambler" movies with Kenny Rogers, did more Western projects with James Arness and co-starred with Marie Osmond in the TV movie "I Married Wyatt Earp." Eventually, he starred in several TV series of his own, including the short-lived "Bring 'Em Back Alive," the wildly popular "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" and the acclaimed futuristic "Babylon 5." (He recently came in at No. 9 on TV Guide's list of all-time top sci-fi icons.)

In some ways, Boxleitner said, "the Western was the foundation for all I did. The other guys were frontier figures. They all held true to the myth and the creed."

He says he still loves Westerns. "I still think the most exciting image on the screen is the horseman moving across the land. I'm very thankful that I got to be a part of the tail end of the golden age of Westerns."

Boxleitner, who was raised on a farm outside of Chicago, grew up with a stick horse and a dog, but he said, "I still had to go to 'cowboy school.' I went out with the wranglers to learn the rudiments. That was not so much the stock-in-trade for young actors by then."

He ended up buying the horses he rode on TV, and for a time had a ranch. "I'd dare anyone to outride me, even now."

Horton, too, went on to a variety of other projects. He starred in TV's "A Man Called Shenandoah." He spent a year on Broadway in "110 in the Shade" and worked in such feature films as "The Green Slime," a sci-fi movie shot in Japan. "It was so bad that now it has become a cult film."

But he found that he enjoyed regional theater more than Hollywood. That took him all over the country (including Salt Lake City, where he starred in a production of "There's a Girl in My Soup" at the old Tiffany's Attic theater at Arrow Press Square in 1976).