It's one of those names which makes you pause for a moment, which means there has to be a story behind it.

The Celebration of Significant People dinner, already sold out, will be held Wednesday at Michelangelo's Banquet Centre and another seven men and women who've made a difference in other people's lives will be honoured.

At the 16 previous dinners, honorees have included more than a dozen championship teams, and more than 150 individuals, mostly from the spheres of sports and teaching.

Dick Bosher, an all-round athlete who starred at Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute in the mid-1960s and later became one of Canada's most accomplished fastball players, is the organizer of the dinner. He and his wife, Susan, put together the first one to honour Central teachers "and about 250 to 300 people showed up. So we said, 'OK let's do it again next year' and we honoured all the guys from Central who went on to play in the CFL.'"

After another year or two, they branched out from the all-Central theme and included the rest of the city and by then the "Significant People" had become part of the title.

That goes back to Bosher's youth. He grew up in the north end and later attended Central where his teams won three city football championship and where he first encountered teacher John Wismer.

"John Wismer was like a surrogate father to me," Bosher explained. "He was important to me, and a lot of other people, when I was growing up. He taught me at Central and he used to always tell me, 'You've got to have significant people in your life.' And that stayed with me."

To the point that it's now the name of his annual event.

After he graduated from what was then Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier) Bosher took up teaching, worked at high schools and elementary schools in Burlington and Hamilton and for the provincial Ministry of Education.

He wanted to provide for others what had been provided for him, plus teaching allowed him to continue playing fastball at the highest level (he starred in the professional Ontario Fastball League and twice won medals at the world championships).

"Teaching allowed me to play ball and that was my passion," he said. "When I first started teaching I was making $2,800 a year. I was making more money playing fastball.

"Life has been good to me and I made a promise to myself when I retired from teaching that I would try to thank all of my mentors who helped me have success. I had a lot of good people help me in my life. I could have easily gone down another road without them."

He knows that if he had that kind of help, countless others did too and feels those who've given their time to teach, coach or inspire should be thanked publicly.

"I don't call them heroes, but they're important people in other people's lives," he says.

This year's honorees are powerlifter Don MacVicar, veteran high school coach Dave Walters, soccer player and coach Lydia Vamos, baseball coach and league organizer Phil Beaudoin, college and university basketball coach Kelly Dunham, longtime Transway basketball coach Larry Angus and Frank Lilliman, founder of the Hamilton Seekers volleyball club. Football players from HCI teams in the late 1960s will also be recognized.

This year's dinner supports the John Wismer Scholarship Fund and the Brain Tumour Foundation. Since the dinner does not make a surplus, most of that financial support comes from Dick and Susan Bosher themselves. Attendees will donate food items to the Neighbour-to-Neighbour Food Bank.

And everyone will know exactly why they are there.

"There are a lot of people to thank," Bosher says.