When Don Peoples Sr. walked up to the table, I knew I was in trouble.

It was at the Butte Country Club in the spring of 2016. I was invited there for lunch by Jim Michelotti, who wanted to talk about his plans for the Butte Sports Hall of Fame moving forward. I brought my reporter’s notebook and a couple of pens. I also brought an excuse.

I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to do a story about his plans for the Hall of Fame, which somehow kept going after the untimely death of Pat Kearney in October of 2014, or if he wanted me to be part of those plans.

As I drove down from my Uptown home, I rehearsed my many reasons why I did not have time to be part of the selection committee. I was already putting in 20 hours a week working mornings at on KBOW. I was spending another 30 to 60 hours each week running ButteSports.com, which was owned by Butte Broadcasting.

No way did I have time to help with the Hall of Fame. There was just no way.

Mick Delaney, the recently-retired head football coach of the University of Montana, sat down at the table before Peoples, the former Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive and one of the most important people in the history of our city.

When I was a young boy, I used to look at Mr. Peoples like he was John F. Kennedy. More than anything, he is a person I knew I could never turn down.

As it turns out, Michelotti, Delaney and Peoples didn’t want me to serve on the selection committee. Rather, they wanted me to run the whole dang thing.

They needed an executive director who had writing and researching skills, and they said I was their only choice.

Michelotti told me that I would find the time to do the work. He was one of the people instrumental in putting together the Hall of Fame class of 2015 less than a year after Kearney’s passing.

He told me he found time to do his work in the middle of the night. Oftentimes, he would find himself writing and researching at 2 a.m.

“That sounds great,” I thought. “But I have to get up at 5 a.m. to go to work. Then I work nights covering sporting events. I already don’t have enough time in the day. There is no way I can take on more.”

I didn’t say that, though. I just sat there and nodded my head.

“Take some time,” Peoples told me. “Talk to your wife and then make a decision.”

The decision, though, was already made. There is no way I could say no to those men. There is no way I could turn my back on the organization that was so important to my good friend Pat.

Plus, I knew if I said no, Pat Kearney was going to visit me in my sleep. Nobody wants that — especially when he’s mad.

In addition to being the man whose optimism and leadership led Butte out of the economic depression that was the 1980s, Peoples was a co-founder of the Hall of Fame. I knew that finding someone to try to fill the shoes of Kearney was very important to him.

He thought I was that guy, and now I figured I had better be.

So, with that, I became the executive director of the Butte Sports Hall of Fame. That came with the unbelievable pressure to keep the organization alive.

The Hall of Fame had been around nearly 30 years before I became involved with it. It actually started at a Butte-Silver Bow Christmas party in the upstairs room at the Butte Civic Center.

The party included one of those conversations that started with something like, “You know what would be a good idea?”

So many conversations start like that when celebrating and carrying on in a holiday bash, but those good ideas usually don’t’ seem as good in the light of day. This one, though, still seemed like a good idea to Peoples the next morning. So, he called Kearney and the ball got rolling.

The Butte Sports Hall of Fame inducted its first class on May 9, 1987. The first class was full of legends, including Sylvia (White) Blaine, Bob O’Billovich, “Jumpin’” Joe Kelly, Swede Dahlberg, Milt Popovich, Jim McCaughey, Jim Sweeney, Bob Hawke, Bill Cullen, Bob O’Malley, Judy (Morstein) Martz, Danny Hanley and Walter T. Scott.

The three teams inducted were the 1908 and 1927 Butte High football teams and the 1950 Butte Central basketball team.

The Hall of Fame inducted a class every odd year until 2019. In 2021, however, COVID made us push it back a year. Now, the ceremonies will take place every even year moving forward.

Later this month, we will induct the 19th class of the Butte Sports Hall of Fame. The individuals being inducted will be Matt Buckley, Dan Lean, Martha (Apostel) Lonner, Betty Merrifield, Wanda Jean (Matteson) Olson, Linda (Lyons) Paull, Erin Popovich, Ron Richards, John Rickman, Bruce Sayler, Steve “Coachie” Schulte, Kyle Smith and Don Tamietti.

Unfortunately, Lean, Olson and Tamietti passed away before they could walk down the red carpet of the Butte Sports immortals.

For the first time, we will have a Special Olympian award that will go to Coach Ronnie Counts.

The teams inducted will be the 1989 Butte High boys’ basketball team, the 1992 Butte High wrestling team, the 1996 Butte High softball team, the 1999 Butte Central softball team and the Kelvin Sampson-led Montana Tech men’s basketball teams of 1983, 1984 and 1985.

The Green Jacket Ceremony will be held Friday, July 19, and the induction banquet will take place on Saturday, July 20. Both events will take place at the Civic Center.

Two years ago, we moved to the Maroon Activities Center because Indiana Jones booted us out of the Civic Center during the filming of the TV series “1923.”

Or maybe that was Han Solo. I always get those two mixed up.

On Friday before the Green Jacket Ceremony, we will hold a golf scramble on the Par 3 course at the Highland View Golf Course. Anyone can show up and play in the 1 p.m. scramble, and Leskovar Honda is sponsoring a hole-in-once contest for a car.

This year will mark the fourth induction ceremony since I realized I had no choice but to try to be the guy to fill the shoes of Pat Kearney. It hasn’t been easy, but it was a lot of fun.

And Mr. Michelotti was right. I often found myself up at 2 a.m. doing some writing and research. But most of that came after I gave up the morning radio shift following the 2017 induction.

I might be a little biased, but I think we did a pretty good job of selecting the right Butte sports legends to carry on the legacy of the Hall.

I think Pat Kearney would agree because so far, he has not visited me in my sleep.

— Bill Foley can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.