DENVER — From the moment you lay eyes on Richardson retiree Joe Rowe, it’s easy to see his determination to help Barack Obama reach the White House.

It’s not because he wears garish, glittering paraphernalia or an adorned cowboy hat like his fellow Texans. He’s not covered in Obama pins or waving a big sign or yelling at the top of his lungs.

What shouts his determination is the wheelchair, the respirator and the nimble feet that take the place of his paralyzed arms and hands — deadened by polio at age 5 — in carrying out his passions as a first-time delegate in Denver.

The feet that typed out the first query looking for fellow Obama supporters on the Internet in January 2007. The feet that drove him to the early meet-ups that eventually turned into Obama Dallas, a powerful group of thousands.

And the feet that helped drive him to Denver for his first convention, to help a candidate he says has inspired him more than anyone since John F. Kennedy.

“I was just in awe of him [Kennedy] and when Obama came along, I felt like, ‘Wow, it’s been 50 years — twice in my lifetime — to see somebody with that kind of charisma and leadership and intelligence,’.” Mr. Rowe said. “I just felt like I had to help him.”

Since starting Obama Dallas, he’s met Mr. Obama four times and become a key supporter in the Dallas area. Especially impressive, he said, was the fact that the senator remembered his name the second time they met.

“Can you believe that? All the people he’s met,” Mr. Rowe said.

Well, Mr. Rowe’s a pretty memorable guy. And not just because of the physical challenges he overcomes every day. In fact, it’s not something the jovial and youthful-looking Mr. Rowe points out unless asked.

When the retired computer programmer discusses the doubts he had that he would become a national delegate, his physical challenges are not among them.

It was more that he had never been involved in party politics. And, as an aside, he couldn’t actually sit with the delegation he hoped would put him in the running for the seat because the Moody Auditorium — where his Senate district caucused in March — didn’t have the access he needed with his wheelchair.

It didn’t have much to do with the fact that he would have to drive his van, which he steers with his feet, to Denver because it’s tough for him to fly. Or that the public transit in Denver might not have had the benefit of someone like him, who campaigned successfully in the 1970s for wheelchair lifts on Dallas buses.

But his dedication must have been apparent to his fellow voters: His precinct made him a delegate in spite of the fact that he couldn’t campaign with them and later voted to send him to Denver.

Once here, the challenge he faces have been nothing really out of the ordinary, he said. The public transportation in Denver turned out to be accessible, he said. And when a private event he wanted to attend chartered buses that had no lifts, the sponsors paid his cab fare.

“It was a bit of a problem the first day, but everyone’s been great about making sure that things are arranged, and the party has been incredible,” he said. “If there’s a problem, they’ve been on top of it.”