FOR KIDS : Children Learn the Ropes : Wild West: A modern cowboy will show youths how to lasso a target during a workshop at the Gene Autry Museum.

The American cowboy will come to life next Saturday morning at the Gene Autry Museum when cowboy Wayne Orme teaches children how to lasso in a workshop called “Yipee-Yi-Yo!”

For the museum, bringing in modern cowboys is one way to make its exhibits, especially the Spirit of the Cowboy gallery, accessible to children, said Noel Toal, the museum teacher in charge of children’s workshops.

“People tend to think of cowboys as history. Being a cowboy is a job, not just a bunch of people riding around on horses,” Toal said.

“The sessions are meant to be workshop-style classes that pertain to one topic, a concentrated hands-on experience,” Toal said. “We always try to get the children in the gallery.”

In addition to learning to twirl a lariat and lasso a target, the children, who must be at least 6 to participate, also will decorate cowboy hats and make wrist cuffs.

Orme said he will bring a couple of friends--ages 11 and 12--”who are able to compete with the grown-ups and know how to use the ropes.” As targets, the little lassoers try to rope a steer and a calf that are made of plastic.

“At the session, the little girls won’t put the ropes down, but the boys will give up in frustration,” said Orme, who has appeared at a previous workshop.

“We go through the motions slowly. We have a four-part step-by-step they must learn to master. The kids have some success,” said Orme, who became a cowboy in Kansas when he was 11. Now in his 50s, he is a part-time cowboy from Rancho Bernardo who says he was featured in a National Geographic book published in the 1970s called “The American Cowboy in Life and Legend” that compared him to legendary cowboy Bill Pickett.

Orme said he enjoys interacting with the children at the workshop because “a lot of kids from the inner city are there who never get exposed to animals. The first thing they want to know, nine out of 10 times, is about the horses. It’s the animal attraction.”

As a boy, Orme’s biggest hero was Gene Autry “because his horse was named Champion. I came up in the generation when my heroes came from movies. Today’s kids only get ‘Robocop’ and that kind of thing. It’s through this type of thing that we are getting most of our future rodeo stars.”

The exhibits in the Spirit of the Cowboy gallery that the children will tour cover the early cowboy days, from vaqueros and Mexican ranching traditions to modern information on how veterinarians care for cattle. In the gallery, the children are drawn to the mounted longhorn steer because it’s “so large and vivid,” Toal said.

Yipee-Yi-Yo! is one of a series of museum classes on native and Western subjects for children and adults that began this year. In the final session Feb. 22, “Watercolor Delight,” Navajo artist Harold Freeland will help children ages 4-7 paint a landscape. On the first Saturday of each month, workshops for children featuring such activities as paper bag puppets or mask making are included in museum admission. Admission prices are $6 adults, $4.50 for people over 60 and students 13 and above, and $2.50 for children 2-12.

Yipee-Yi-Yo, for children 6 and older, is from 10:30 a.m. to noon Feb. 15 at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, 4700 Western Heritage Way. Advance registration required. $15 cost includes materials. Call (213) 667-2000, Ext . 336.