This past summer, I visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Coopertown, New York, for the first time.

I’m a junkie of the game. I’m old enough to have watched my boyhood hero, Mickey Mantle, hit some of his many home runs on a black-and-white TV.

The HOF had me thinking. Every major sport has its own hall. There are hundreds of halls in America that honor individuals and groups. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is one that draws a half-million visitors every year. Some of the much lesser-known HOFs are the Quilters Hall of Fame in Marian, Indiana, the Idaho Rodeo Hall of Fame, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in Pickerington, Ohio, and how about the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame in Dania, Florida.

The one theme that runs through all the halls is superior performance or accomplishment, making me think: Why not a National Ordinary People Hall of Fame?

This building would have three floors. The first would honor children who performed heroically to better a situation. Here are three of my inductees. In 2020, 6-year-old Bridger Walker from Cheyenne, Wyoming, stepped in front of a charging dog to protect his younger sister. He suffered severe facial injuries that required 90 stitches. Asked why he acted with such courage, he said. “If somebody was going to die, I thought it should be me.”

A year later in Oklahoma, 7-year-old Dakota Duke climbed down a 100-foot vertical cliff to rescue his brother who had fallen. Dakota held his brother’s head above water in a chilly creek until first responders arrived. Thirteen-year-old Dillon Reeves from Warren, Michigan, would be another inductee into my NOPHOF. This middle school student was able to step behind the wheel and stop a school bus full of kids from a terrible crash after the driver had lost consciousness.

The second floor of the National Ordinary People’s Hall of Fame would be the teenager wing. Barbara Johns (age 16) led a 1951 student protest in Farmville, Virginia, against unequal school conditions, which led to a lawsuit included in Brown v. Board of Education.

Fifteen-year-old Jack Andraka, a Maryland high school student, created an inexpensive early detection test for pancreatic cancer. The test is 28 times faster and far cheaper than what has currently been used. Andraka’s discovery was also found to detect early signs of ovarian and lung cancer. I’d have a special section of the hall for international recipients. One would be Louis Braille, who at age 15 invented the Braille reading system for the blind and the visually impaired.

My third floor would honor adults. Dale Schroeder, a blue-collar worker who grew up poor in Iowa and never had children of his own, left $3 million dollars to send 33 rural Iowa kids that he had never met to college. Todd Beamer would be inducted posthumously. On 9/11 Beamer fought back against terrorists who had hijacked a plane and were headed on a suicide mission to attack the Pentagon. Beamer and other passengers caused the plane to crash near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania, saving the lives of many at the Pentagon.

Cori and Mark Salchert from Wisconsin have adopted five children diagnosed with terminal illnesses. They have adapted their house to make it handicap accessible both outside and inside. The Salcherts have eight kids of their own and have fostered four others. The sign in the door reads, “There’s a lot of kids in here.” They comfort each of the dying children, get them to laugh if they can and then watch them take their last breaths.

“Our hope is that our kids are whole and well and that we’re going to see them again, and that they’re going to be able to say, ‘Hey mom,’ or, ‘Hey dad’ — something that they never were able to say while we had them,” Cori said.

Three-and-a-half-year-old Nehemiah died in their family room while Cori sang, “Jesus Loves Me” to him. “He opened his eyes — something he hadn’t done in about 48 hours — and took his last breath, and he was gone,” she said. “He woke up in heaven, and he will never have to have another surgical procedure.”

Author Larry Brilliant said, “Change starts with ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The path to the extraordinary is open to anybody at any time.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams said, “I believe the truth is told in the actions we take. And I believe that if enough ordinary people back up our desire for a better world with action, I believe we can, in fact, accomplish absolutely extraordinary things.”

After her daughter was killed by a repeat drunken driver, Candy Lightner founded MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) in 1980. Her campaign led to stricter DUI laws that have since saved countless lives.

In June 1972, security guard Frank Wills found tape over a locked basement door in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. He called the police to determine why the tape was put there and once inside the room, they found evidence that eventually led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation.

Lilly Ledbetter, who worked many years for Goodyear, sued the company in 1998 for paying her less money than her male colleagues doing the same job. This led to the Fair Pay Act that guaranteed women would receive the same pay as men for doing the same work.

One of my favorite quotes comes from author Matshona Dhiliwayo: “Ordinary people pursue money, simple people pursue power, average people pursue fame, but extraordinary people pursue ideas.”

We ordinary people have the ability to do something extraordinary. What that will be is up to us.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com