COVINGTON, Ky. — The city of Covington is mourning the loss of a man who is thought to be the longest serving elected official in the city’s history.

Butch Callery lived a life of service and helped make Covington the city it is today.

Pictures of the Covington city commission and mayor from years past line a hallway in city hall. For a 29-year span, Butch’s face was a common face in all of them.

“Any chance he had to serve in any capacity, he always took advantage of that,” said Butch’s son, Craig Callery.

Irvin T. “Butch” Callery, who passed away this past Sunday, was commissioner from 1980 to 2000, and then mayor from 2001 to 2008, Covington’s longest serving elected official in its history.

Craig said his father’s call to service might have come from listening to John F. Kennedy in 1961.

“He always told me the famous inaugural address about asking not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, really had quite an effect on him,” Callery said.

A member of the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame, Butch once had tryouts with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and his beloved Cincinnati Reds, the latter of which he remained a lifelong fan.

“That’ll be one of the things I miss most, is going to Reds games with him,” Craig said. “We’d have to be in our seats before the national anthem, and regardless of the score, the weather, the time, we would sit through the last out of every game. Every time a Reds player got up to hit, he would look at me and go, ‘I got a feeling this guy’s taking this ball out of here.’ And invariably, by the seventh or eighth inning somebody would hit a home run and he’d look at me like, ‘I told you,’ and I’m like, ‘yeah, for the other 23 at bats, nothing happened.’”

Butch also coached and sponsored several baseball and softball teams through the years, and was athletic director at St. Benedict Elementary.

He became a spokesperson for Citizens of All Latonia, or COAL, an anti-coal dock movement, which helped launch his political career.

“They were looking at putting a coal dock in on the Licking River, which caused a huge uproar,” Callery said. “The person that was running the meeting got stage fright. So he volunteered to step in. If you know my dad, I don’t think it took much for him to step into a leadership role.”

Callery said his father was a “fantastic dad.”

 “A lot of the time, the projects he did with the city of Covington took him away. But when he had time at home, he was always involved with the four of us and then his grandkids and great grandkids,” he said. “His passion was his family, his faith, the city of Covington and the Cincinnati Reds. Sometimes not always in that order.”

Covington’s current longtime mayor, Joe Meyer, reflected on the impact Callery made.

“He was noted for being a very kind and decent human being as an elected official, who always put the interest of the citizens first, and who worked very hard to deal with problems that our people were having on a case-by-case basis,” Meyer said. “It’s a great honor to be able to try to address the concerns of the people, to improve the quality of life for everyone. And it’s a real opportunity to be a true public servant. Those are the things that motivate people like Butch Callery. And once you get it into your bloodstream, it’s hard to get rid of it. He gave a full lifetime of service.”

After his time in Covington, Butch would go on to be elected mayor of Villa Hills, where he served from 2015 to 2018. He was named the “Elected Official of the Year” in 2017 by the Kentucky League of Cities.

But his son said he’ll always be remembered for what he did in Covington, starting his first year in 1980.

“Where Covington was at that point in time to where it is today, and for him to have some part of that, I know would make him proud as any. Every time we go through Covington, and see the changes and the improvements that have happened over the past, at this point, 40 plus years, knowing that he was part of it, I think would’ve been the most important thing for him.” Craig said. “If you don’t leave an impact or make people smile, then it’s been a waste of time, and I think he did both.”

Butch was 83 years old. Services will be Thursday, April 18. Details can be found on in his obituary.