Penn Theater brings NFL Draft experience to Butler’s Main Street
While hundreds of thousands converged upon Pittsburgh’s city center for the first night of the NFL draft, a Butler County football icon brought a piece of the draft experience closer to home.
On Thursday night, April 23, hundreds gathered in the historic Penn Theater on Butler’s Main Street for a private party organized by Ralph McElhaney. McElhany is well-known to many Butler County residents as an assistant coach for being the Butler Golden Tornado high school football team for decades.
“I just sort of felt like all eyes are going to be on Pittsburgh,” McElhaney said. “With it being so busy down there, I kind of wanted to just have a party to celebrate what was going on right here in Butler. And the Penn Theater, I felt, was the best place to do it.”
“He approached me and he thought this was a monumental opportunity in Butler and a historical event and I couldn’t have agreed more,” said Jaloyn Fockler, executive director for the Penn Theater. “And so, we collaborated and we decided to throw this great NFL Draft party.”
“The Penn Theater did a fabulous job decorating the place,” McElhaney said.
Billed as a “private party,” nearly all of the 300 tickets for the event were sold out by 6 p.m., two hours before the draft began.
McElhaney has previous experience with the Penn Theater, as he was actively involved in the venue’s extensive reconstruction and renovation in 2023 as a volunteer.
“Ralph was one of the OGs of the Penn Theater,” Fockler said. “He helped with a lot of the initial construction and revitalization.”
“I’m good friends with Jay Barber, who’s the general contractor here, and he needed some help trying to get the place ready,” McElhaney said. “So I came down and started volunteering my time because they were on a deadline to get ready for their soft opening.”
Events associated with the draft party included a “battle of the sexes” trivia competition held on the theater’s stage in the hour leading up to the draft, as well as a unique “triple raffle” where the outcome depended on what the Steelers decided to do with their first-round pick on Thursday night.
“You can buy a $5 ticket and there’s three different buckets,” McElhany said. “It’s for an offensive player, a defensive player or to trade (the pick). Depending on what the Steelers do in the draft, we’ll take that bucket... We’ll pull a ticket and that ticket will win everything. They'll win all the money.”
WBUT Radio held a live broadcast from the Penn Theater’s stage, interviewing several local personalities, including the Butler Eagle’s own John Enrietto.
In addition, author and Butler High School graduate Edward Codi held a signing in the theater lobby for his book “The Brothers Saul, a Football Legacy,” a biography on three brothers and Butler County natives — Bill, Ron and Rich — who all played in the NFL.
As for the Steelers, McElhaney said he had little preference as to who they chose on the first day of the draft.
As of 7 p.m., the Steelers held the 21st overall pick and had not traded in either direction.
“I like the changes that Pittsburgh’s making right now with their coaching staff,” McElhaney said. “That’s what makes this event very exciting, because we have no idea who it's going to be.”
