Since his somewhat odd initiation into the league with the Bathurst Eagles almost three decades ago, Lewis has contributed both on and off the field to help make the competition what it is today.

He was already one of four AFL Central West life members, but on Friday night he joined the first class of hall of fame inductees alongside Mick Sloan (Bathurst Giants), Geoff Day and Graeme Clements (Cowra Blues) and David Redden (Orange Tigers).

"Obviously it's an honour to be inducted into the first AFL Central West hall of fame, there was criteria that had to be met to be inducted and I'm certainly proud of the things that I have done for the league," Lewis said.

It all began with a toga party in 1993, a time when Lewis was managing the basketball stadium.

"It was the Friday night of school holidays so there was no junior basketball, I knew one guy from the club. I played all my junior basketball in Albury with him and surprisingly he ended up in Bathurst," Lewis recalled.

"He asked me to come to a toga party and meet some of the footy boys. I said okay, I was 33 years of age and they asked me 'What are you doing tomorrow?' I said nothing and they said that they were short for ressies so come on and play.

"So I trotted off to Cowra for a game of ressies. I ran out in my Asics joggers and Boston Celtics shorts and I told them 'Listen boys, if I play I'm only playing full forward'.

"I kicked two or three goals and then, I brought the esky down with a cartoon of beer, it was a nice afternoon, someone was driving me home and I thought I'd watch firsts.

"I got one beer in when I heard someone call 'water, water'. I looked around and thought to myself that no-one was going to help these blokes out so I did, I was the slowest runner in the world."

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Lewis ran the whole game, the Eagles won and when he finished and returned to his esky, he found all his beer was gone.

But his new team-mates invited him back to the pub, gave him an award and as Lewis puts it 'I've been involved ever since'.

"They fast figured out I was an administrator so it wasn't long until I was on the club committee and not long after that I was on the league committee," he said.

Lewis went on to be involved with five first grade premierships as Bathurst Eagles' assistant coach or manager and won a reserve grade title as Eagles skipper in 1995.

When the Eagles merged with the CSU Bulldogs to form the Bathurst Bushrangers in 2004, Lewis was there as well.

That season he was assistant to first grade coach Noel Sibly and celebrated on grand final day as the Bushrangers marked their inaugural season with a premiership.

It was a group of players Lewis holds in the highest esteem.

"I've been involved with some dynasties, the Eagles' five-year dynasty and the Bushrangers playing in 16 grand finals in a row, and look it's always contentious when you start talking best teams ever," he said.

"But hands down the best side I've ever seen is the first year of the Bushrangers, that was '04.

"You have got a team there that won every game and the closest anybody got to them was 10 goals and they had a couple of games where they held the opposition scoreless. So they are by far the best team I have seen."

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As for the best player he's seen play AFLCW, surprisingly Lewis hasn't gone the way of an Eagle or a Bushranger. Rather he's opted for a Cowra talent.

"Look we've seen some good players in this league, that first Bushrangers side had Dan Reid in the side and he legitimately played half a dozen games for the ressies for the Swans," Lewis said.

"But week-in, week-out over a long period of time it's Frank Bright. He's a home-grown product which helps his cause even more."

After being involved in Bushrangers' historic inaugural season, in 2005 Lewis was head coach and steered the Bushrangers to their second premiership.

He remained in that role the following season when the Bathurst outfit finished runners-up to an undefeated Cowra side.

Lewis served on both Eagles and Bushrangers club committees in roles like treasurer, vice-president and secretary and has been named a life member of both clubs.

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He also served as the AFLCW general manager for four years, treasurer for two years and overall as a delegate or league committee person for two decades.

He has coached the Central West senior representative side on three occasions and acted as their manager 10 times, while Lewis was a driving force behind juniors representing the league as well.

"Rep football was certainly my passion," Lewis said.

"The seniors were already going, but I was inspirational in getting the matches with Northern Riverina to be an annual event and then involving the juniors as well.

"We got a couple of junior grades playing at the start and in the end we even had the youth league girls - so we had 17s, 15s, 13s and youth girls the last time we played them."

On a state-level Lewis was invited to join a sub-committee which revamped the by-laws of NSW AFL, but he also made changes to the way AFLCW operated.

"I certainly pushed very heavily that everybody had to be in uniform. When I first started you'd go to a town and there'd be guys playing in pink board shorts ... in my role of general manager that was one of the first things I did, that it was in the bylaws that you had to be uniform to play," he said.

"The other thing that was highly contentious in my reign was we pushed the juniors to a Sunday."

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As well as being honoured by being part of the first hall of fame class, Lewis was delighted to see good friend Sloan given the same recognition.

Lewis chuckled when he said they had shared in 'many shenanigans' over the years since first meeting as Eagles.

"Mick Sloan and I both started at the Eagles in 1993. Mick was a rookie teacher at Blayney High School, he was from Canberra and contemplating playing rugby because he didn't know enough about playing rules out here," Lewis said.

"One of our club committee men heard about him and actually went and knocked on his door to ask him to play and we beat Orange to the punch, otherwise he could've been an Orange Tiger.

"It's been a privilege to work with him and I've formed a strong bond not only with Mick but his wife Kathy - she was my righthand man and did a lot of stuff for me when I was general manager."

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