The new Lawrence Business Hall of Fame may honor the past, but its biggest job just may be embracing the future.

The hall, a project of Junior Achievement, celebrated its grand opening Thursday afternoon inside the Lawrence Public Library’s Business Center, a technology and resource center on the building’s lower level at 707 Vt.

“The mission of Junior Achievement is to educate and inspire our young people in grades K through 12 — and that’s in the Lawrence, Eudora and Baldwin school districts — on the value of the free-enterprise system,” said Dale Willey, chairman of the organization’s Hall of Fame Committee, during an afternoon reception. “We teach about business, economics, leadership. And we do that each year, with community volunteers.

“This is the final piece of the education process for these youngsters, because now we can have people who have actually been there as an example to look up to, as role models, to follow.”

The hall’s inaugural class of laureates:

• Marilyn Dobski, co-owner of Dobski & Associates, the Lawrence-based owner/operator of more than a dozen McDonald’s restaurants in Lawrence and northeast Kansas.

• Joe Flannery, president of Weaver’s Inc., a department store at 901 Mass.

• Val Stella, a distinguished professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at Kansas University.

• The late Dolph Simons Sr., who was publisher of the Lawrence Journal-World from 1944 to 1962 and the newspaper’s editor from 1950 to 1979.

All four laureates offer excellent examples for the 11,000 students in the Lawrence school district to follow, said Rick Doll, district superintendent and Junior Achievement board member.

“Our hope would be that some kiddo out there in our system right now is up on this wall — or some wall around here — in the future,” Doll said.