Jerry Hill is almost as well known for his passion for UW athletics as he is for founding Hill Electric in Madison 50 years ago this spring. That 's OK -- he 's been a Bucky fan longer than a nationally recognized electrical and labor relations expert.

"When I was 12, we 'd sneak into the games at Camp Randall, " Hill was saying Wednesday. He and his buddies had figured out that if they stormed a gate, the usher could likely only grab one of them.

Pretty soon, Hill decided it would be easier to buy a ticket, and seven decades later, he 's still buying them. The business has 12 season tickets for football alone. In the years between, Jerry helped his great friend, Butch Strickler, start his famous baloney bash to benefit UW athletics. The two of them, Butch and Jerry, are on any short list of the best friends the athletic department has ever had. They 've also had more fun than anyone else on the list.

But it 's time -- and timely -- to point out that none of the good cheer and travel would have been possible had Jerry Hill not taken a risk and started a business, Hill Electric, in the spring of 1958. He was the owner and only employee and ran it out of the garage of his home on Wingra Drive.

Today, Jerry 's son, Jay Hill, runs a thriving business with 35 employees and an office on Emil Street near the Beltline and Fish Hatchery Road.

On April 27, Hill Electric will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a celebration from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Nakoma Golf Club. Jerry, who at 81 is no longer as mobile as he would like, will be there, telling stories.

He knows some good ones. A Madison native, Hill graduated from Madison West High School in 1943 and entered the Navy. It was there he discovered a gift for electrical work. Out of the service, and several years removed from a classroom, Hill said he was "not in the mood " to pursue higher education. Instead, he approached Cliff Penn, owner of Penn Electric, about a job. As a kid, Jerry had served as bat boy for one of the baseball teams Penn sponsored. He got hired.

He spent more than a decade with Penn, doing service calls at the beginning and eventually running the business when Penn began wintering in Arizona. In 1958, when the owner returned from the desert sun, Jerry said he was thinking of striking out on his own. Penn said if he felt that way, he should probably leave immediately.

Jerry remembers that it was a Friday night. He was 32 years old, married with several children -- and no job. Back at home, he called a friend at Tony Urso 's restaurant on West Washington Avenue. The friend was the mother of Joanne Jensen, who would later run Josie 's at Regent and Park. Hill knew Urso 's had recently had trouble with a contractor not finishing an electrical job. The restaurant invited Jerry to finish it, which he did to their satisfaction. Word got out.

"By the end of the first month, I hired one man, " Hill recalled. "By the end of the second month, I hired another. "

Still, for a while the business was run out of the home he and his wife, Berdine, shared on Wingra Drive. They were married 53 years until Berdine 's death in 1999. Jerry lived in the house for 58 years. Today, he has a home just outside Madison, its walls filled with UW athletics memorabilia and awards from the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).

The business eventually moved to its longtime home at 1044 S. Park St., and then, in the fall of 1997, to Emil Street. The next year, Jerry received the association 's Comstock Award for his work in management-labor relations. He already had another of the industry 's highest accolades. At a NECA convention in New Orleans in 1988, he was inducted into the Academy of Electrical Contracting, the industry 's hall of fame. Hill attended 42 consecutive NECA annual conventions but has missed the last few; he 's hoping to attend this year 's in Chicago in October.

This week, he was recalling how he first met Butch Strickler, who celebrated his 86th birthday on April 10. "It was at Rohde 's, " Jerry said. Rohde 's, a downtown steak house, was where the sports and media crowds mixed in the 1960s. Butch and Jerry were there one night with the new UW football coach, John Jardine, and watched as Jardine literally passed a hat around a meeting to generate money for UW athletics. Strickler and Hill exchanged glances, and the baloney bash was born a short time later. It raised millions.

Jerry Hill has no plans to go anywhere soon -- other than Nakoma a week from Sunday -- but he has most eventualities covered. Several years ago, I wrote a column about the UW deciding not to get in the business of licensing caskets and urns, as several universities had begun to do. Jerry Hill was on the phone to me within moments of reading the column, saying he had independently ordered his own Badger-themed casket with a motion W on the lid.

"I wrote the check Friday, " he said.

Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com.