Mike and Terre Kelly are like hundreds of other parents.

But then again, they're so rare, they've been inducted into the Hilton Head Island High School Athletic Hall of Fame -- as volunteers working the concession stand.

The Kellys were honored with athletes Victor Frazier, Tom Rhoads, Mark Hodson, Laura Knapp Bumby and Jennifer White Douglas at the football game Friday night.

"It was like the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life' except for the jumping off the bridge part," Terre said.

They both jumped right in at Gator youth football games soon after moving to the island in 1988. With seven children all told -- "yours, mine and ours," Terre said -- volunteering at their schools and church was how Terre got inducted into life on an island she calls "Small Town, USA," not a resort.

As the story goes, George Shelor asked Mike to relieve him for a few minutes cooking burgers at a Gators football game, and never came back. Or, when he got back, Mike had taken charge, which he is good at, and wouldn't move.

Two decades later, a large grill and separate building next to the high school football field's concession stand are needed for the famous "Kelly Burger." They call the place "Kelly's 51 Yardline Cafè."

Mike Kelly likes to think big. He named his business Kelly and Sons Plumbing Co. when his boys were toddlers.

The couple who met at an adult softball game in Memphis, Tenn., have all but lived on the fields of Hilton Head. They have run concessions for the Gators, Dixie Youth baseball, the middle school, the high school baseball team and American Legion baseball. And they're still going, seven years after their last child got out of high school, and with their 12th grandchild on the way.

They represent a long, thin line of people who have chipped in to boost school spirit, support parks and raise money for youth activities. They say it's an honor to have the opportunity and ability to volunteer -- even on that Friday night when the moon was full, the stadium was packed, the line was three deep at the 51 Yardline Cafè, and the Kellys entertained everybody by fighting ("He wasn't doing anything but standing there flipping burgers, telling me ...").

It's certainly more than flipping burgers.

Terre got to be known for her speech to parents at the start of the youth baseball season. She would ask them why they were there. If she got a blank stare, she'd say, "I hope it's so you can be involved in your child's life. I hope it's so you can meet people, get involved, and maybe mentor a few other kids along the way."

Terre said that's what she and Mike have been trying to do all these years, "in the simplest of ways."

Follow columnist David Lauderdale at twitter.com/ThatsLauderdale.