Lost? Confused? Help just might be standing nearby

They wear white cowboy hats, rescue the innocent and round up the strays.

They’re volunteer “ambassadors” who roam cavernous Denver International Airport, looking for lost and confused travelers. They can speed your way to baggage claim, help you negotiate security and keep you from missing your flight.

There are similar cadres of volunteers at many airports, although no one seems to know exactly how many.

“There’s no central clearinghouse for these programs,” said Ellen Horton, executive producer of special projects for the American Assn. of Airport Executives in Alexandria, Va., which moderates annual workshops for the volunteers.

Kristi Torrey, who set up Denver’s program in 1993, figures about 20 to 30 U.S. airports have volunteer ambassadors. Among airports fielding the biggest groups are thought to be Phoenix Sky Harbor, with more than 600 volunteers; Dallas-Fort Worth, with 520; and Denver, with more than 250.

LAX, on the other hand, assigns part-time paid employees to this task. It typically deploys 15 to 18 at a time between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., stationed near baggage claim and curbside at the departures level in its eight terminals, said Lisa Wellik, who oversees the LAX Ambassador Program.

Volunteers from Travelers Aid International also help passengers at LAX and more than 20 other airports. At San Diego, some of the group’s volunteers roam the terminals; at LAX and most other airports, they’re stationed at desks. You have to find them.

You’ll have no problem finding Denver’s ambassadors, outfitted in cowboy hats and suede vests festooned with colorful pins. In fact, as I’ve learned, they’ll likely find you, if you pause even briefly on the edge of indecision.

“Howdy. May I help you?” they’ll ask.

Typical of the programs, many of Denver’s volunteers are retirees. The oldest in the current group is 87, the youngest is 17 and the average is 50, said Corinne Christensen, the program’s administrator. Ten or more work at any one time.

I followed one of them, 11-year veteran Marilyn Shaw, for about an hour on a Sunday afternoon last month.

We had barely left the program’s office when she encountered Lynmar and Claudie Brock Jr. and their son Andrew on their way back to Philadelphia after a six-day Denver visit.

“Where is the best food?” Andrew asked.

“Pour La France,” Shaw replied. (It had been highly rated in a national survey of airport cafes, she later said.)

We strolled down to the Great Hall on the terminal’s fifth level, near the fountain, where arriving passengers exited the airport shuttle trains.

Velvet Rorrer, a Denver-area resident arriving from Dallas, walked up to Shaw and said, “My flight was late getting in, and my baggage claim area wasn’t posted.” Shaw escorted her downstairs to baggage claim and pointed her to carousel No. 11. Turned out that was wrong. Even the United agent nearby was confused; it was No. 15.

In the next few minutes, Shaw helped passengers find the Shamrock Airport Express counter, a bus to the remote Mount Elbert parking lot, Hertz’s rental-car shuttle and the nearest restroom.

Some of those Shaw helped had walked right past signs showing the way. Under the stress of travel, “people become afflicted with what I call ‘airport illiteracy.’ They can’t read the signs,” she said.

Earlier that day, Shaw said, she found a wheelchair for a traveler on crutches and helped another man, who said he had been in the terminal since 9 a.m. the previous day, look for a computer so he could check his e-mail. He was hoping to hear from his arriving Russian fiancee.

“I had a bad feeling about that,” Shaw said, referring to frequently reported scams in which foreign women romance American men on the Internet, solicit money for flights and then never show up.

She didn’t know how that story, and many others, turned out. That’s the nature of her brief encounters. But sometimes she sees the story through and gets more than a passing thank you.

“In the last year,” she said, “I’ve had two men -- one German, one Russian -- kiss my hand because I helped them find their gates so they didn’t miss their flights.”

Volunteers at various airports may also take it upon themselves to escort children and confused adults, often elderly or mentally disabled, through security and all the way to their gates. They may also meet and greet soldiers.

At the Dallas airport, “a lot of people arrive, they don’t speak English and all they have is a telephone number,” said Karen Turner, manager of the ambassador program. Together, her volunteers speak 38 languages.

In Denver, travelers Shaw encountered gave the ambassadors a good review.

“I think they’re great,” said Rorrer, a regular flier who searches out the good guys -- and girls -- in white hats.

But not everyone is thrilled.

“I try to avoid them,” Denver resident Wendy Cunniff said, adding that they’re too chatty. Recently, an ambassador promoting the airport’s 10-year anniversary “handed out some literature and went on and on,” she said. “I finally said, ‘I’ve got to go catch a flight.’ ”

Ambassador programs seem to be a universal hit with one group: the volunteers.

“I enjoy solving problems,” said Shaw, retired head of research for the Denver Art Museum. The duty is also good exercise, she added.

At John Wayne Airport in Orange County, about half of the 50 volunteers have been with the program since it began in 1998, said Jill Matthews, who oversees them. When they quit, it’s mostly because they move away or develop health problems.

“I practically have to pry the badge out of their hands,” she said.

Why do people like Shaw do this for free?

With a laugh, she said, “No one can afford to pay me what I’m worth.”

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Jane Engle welcomes comments but can’t respond individually to letters and calls. Write to Travel Insider, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.