Bush Says ‘Howdy’ to Summit Guests : Texas: The President welcomes fellow world leaders to his home state. They watched a rodeo, pitched a few horseshoes and were presented with $1,000 ostrich skin cowboy boots.

With $1,000 ostrich-skin cowboy boots for their feet, handmade Texan china for their barbecue and an air-conditioned arena for their rodeo, President Bush welcomed summit guests to his adopted hometown Sunday.

At least the three who managed to show up.

Japan’s Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu was the first to arrive, entering the Astroarena under an arch emblazoned “Howdy Partner” and bowing and shaking hands as he greeted Bush.

World-leader casual was the style note of the day: blue blazers over golf shirts for the men, expensively informal dresses for the women.

Barbara Bush wore a blue-and-white checked gingham cowgirl dress. Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady wore a bright red-orange shirt that matched the cowboy bandanna around the neck of his wife, Katherine. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney displayed a broad-brimmed white Stetson hat.

But not all were so relaxed. Bush’s domestic policy adviser, Roger Porter, wore a pocketful of pens in his blue oxford-cloth shirt. And Margaret Thatcher, the indomitable British Prime Minister, maintained her aversion to relaxation in public, arriving in a checkered suit and clutching a white purse.

Thatcher also passed up the chance to pitch horseshoes. As steers lowed in the background, Kaifu took his turn, grimacing as he awkwardly tossed a shoe into the lights that lined the horseshoe pit. Mulroney did no better. Bush hit two ringers in a row.

Bush, Mulroney and European Community Commission President Jacques Delors showed off the boots, which Houston boot-maker Rocky Carroll had crafted for Bush to present as gifts. Each pair, emblazoned with the silhouette of Texas and the flags of each of the seven summit nations, took him 40 hours to make, according to Carroll. “These are the finest boots I’ve ever made,” he said.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti will get their boots even though they skipped the party. Like many of the thousands of diplomats, bureaucrats and reporters gathered here for the annual summit of the world’s chief economic powers, which formally begins today, both had a higher priority--soccer--and remained in Rome to watch Germany’s World Cup final match against Argentina. West Germany won, 1-0.

The summit’s seventh participant, French President Francois Mitterrand, also skipped the party. Mitterrand, who often prefers to arrive at international summits last--the spot of honor in international protocol--announced that he would not be arriving until today.

Those who did arrive watched a demonstration of rodeo and country music that began with Suzy Mills, a rider from San Diego, cantering her horse out of a huge red, white and blue boot and circling the air-conditioned arena bearing an American flag. “Hello and howdy and welcome to Texas,” the announcer declared.

With the temperature and humidity both in the high 90s, air conditioning is a Houston necessity. A coalition of environmental groups, trying to dramatize their concern over global warming, put an ice sculpture of the globe in a downtown park. They had hoped it would melt slowly, providing a nice “visual” for the hordes of television crews swarming around the summit. But before noon, the globe was a puddle.

Bush, whose idea it was to hold the summit in Houston in July, insisted, however, that he was undeterred by the sultry weather. After attending church on Sunday morning, he took a 30-minute jog through the park near the hotel that serves as his legal voting residence here. “It’s not bad yet,” Bush said of the heat before stripping off his T-shirt and diving into his waiting, and air-conditioned, limousine.

The day before the actual beginning of the summit was something of a mix, with spare-no-expense bashes for the press being thrown only a short distance from the site of demonstrations by the Ku Klux Klan.

The official summit greeting ceremony will he held this morning.