The 2025-26 school year marked Eric Peterson's first as activities director for Helena Public Schools. And in that time there was one thing he heard from the community above all else.
"There wasn't a week that had gone by since I got the job last spring and summer that somebody didn't ask me when we were going to add baseball," Peterson said Wednesday during an interview with MTN Sports. "It had always been a goal."
That goal became a reality Tuesday night when the Helena Public Schools Board of Trustees turned in a unanimous 8-0 vote to add high school baseball to the HPS athletic offerings this coming school year. Both Helena High and Helena Capital will hit the diamond beginning in the spring of 2027.
Watch the video to hear Peterson's immediate reaction to the school board's unanimous vote:
Peterson said the teams will play their home games at venerable Kindrick Legion Field.
Tuesday's vote hinged on a financial contingency — that first-year startup costs of roughly $110,000 would be privately funded. Peterson said a local parent group raised that money, and a little bit more, to remove the financial burden from the district.
"Which is truly amazing," Peterson said. "It just shows the support of the baseball community in Helena."
Peterson said continuing costs beyond the first year are anticipated to fluctuate around $67,000 combined between Helena High and Capital per season.
Peterson said the addition of baseball in Montana's capital city was part of the district's overall mission.
"Our job is to serve the students in our district," he said. "We sent out an interest survey earlier in the fall and the results showed an overwhelming interest for high school baseball. We're not creating a demand for baseball, but we're responding to a demand that already existed among our students.
"I think we have a responsibility to listen to our kids and to provide meaningful opportunities. We're just glad the board was able to see that and to provide another avenue for our kids to connect with their schools and their peers in the community."
Notably, Helena was the last holdout among Class AA districts since the Montana High School Association sanctioned baseball for its inaugural season in the spring of 2023.
"There's been some financial hardships within the district, and it didn't make sense at the time to try to bring on baseball when you're closing an elementary school, for example," Peterson said. "So now, Superintendent (Rex) Weltz and the board have gotten our district back to where we feel like it's a good time.
"It's hard. There's really never a good time, because there's just never a surplus of a lot of money, but now the district is in a good enough place to where it was the right time for us."
Helena is also home to one of the more successful American Legion baseball programs in the state; the Senators won Montana/Alberta state championships in both 2021 and 2023 and have been consistent contenders under coach Jon Burnett.
The Legion program has been the local torch-bearer for baseball ever since the Helena Brewers — a longstanding minor league franchise — left the city after the 2018 season. Burnett told MTN Sports that the Helena Legion program supported the push to add baseball in the school district.
"We're very supportive," Burnett said. "Any chance that we can get more baseball and get more kids playing, we're excited for that chance.
"What I'm hoping it does is ... there are those kids that played baseball all the way up, and then for whatever reason they get into high school and they don't continue with the Legion program. Maybe this will bring a few of those kids back to the game. Maybe they even come back and play Legion baseball.
"Hopefully this is something that just grows the Helena baseball community."
The next steps for the district will be to put the first-year operating budget to use in preparation for the 2027, and to hire coaches to lead the Helena High and Capital teams.
"That will definitely be one of my first priorities, trying to get those vacancies up on our district website," Peterson said.
With the money raised and the vote unanimous, Helena has officially answered the call. All that’s left to do now is play ball.
