Friends and colleagues of longtime Kansas broadcaster Howard Hill paid tribute this week to the man most people remember as the stadium announcer at Kansas University football and basketball games, but who for decades was also a key figure in the state’s broadcasting industry.

Hill died May 2. He was 80.

Howard T. Hill, Jr.

“His presence in the broadcasting community in the state was enormous,” said Hank Booth, a longtime friend and veteran broadcaster whose family owned KLWN-AM and KLZR-FM (now KISS-FM) in Lawrence.

Howard T. Hill, Jr., was born and raised in Manhattan and earned a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from Kansas State University. But he spent most of his career at Kansas University, where he served as manager of its public radio station KANU-FM, now known as Kansas Public Radio.

“One of the nicest guys I’ve ever worked with in broadcasting,” said Darrell Brogdon, programming director at KPR, whom Hill hired in the early 1980s. “So I guess I’m at Kansas Public Radio, thanks at least in part to Howard.”

Broadcasting career

Hill started working at the station in 1976, and was general manager during one of the station’s most difficult periods when, in December 1982, its 600-foot tower on the university’s west campus collapsed after somebody cut its guy wires.

“That was an experience that tests you as a manager and a staff,” Brogdon said. “There was almost a year that we were either not on the air or operating on really low power.”

Although rumors abounded in Lawrence about who might have cut the wires, no arrest was ever made and Brogdon said it remains “an unsolved mystery.”

“One of the great things about the guy was he left us free to do what we wanted to do,” he said. “I got to do things like ‘Right Between the Ears’ (a sketch comedy program Brogdon created and produces) because Howard said OK, take a chance and do it.”

That program first aired in 1985, with its original name “Imagination Workshop,” with Hill as the announcer. The program is now syndicated on Sirius-XM, National Public Radio, BBC 4 and Delta Radio.

During his time at the station, Hill also helped establish the Kansas Public Broadcasting Council, a state agency within the Department of Administration that is made up of managers from all the public radio and TV in the state, as well as KCPT-TV in Kansas City, Mo.

Janet Campbell, the current manager at KPR, said that move helped secure regular state funding to subsidize the operation of the stations and to provide matching funds for federal grants.

Hill was also active on the board of the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, a trade association and lobby group that includes both commercial and non-commercial radio and TV stations. He served as the group’s president in 1988 and chairman of its board in 1998.

“He was one of the people that led to much better relations between public radio stations and television stations and commercial stations,” Booth said. “There was never any animosity. There were people in commercial broadcasting, and we thought those people in non-commercial were just kind of a different breed. Howard was such a great spokesperson for public radio and the media in general, he helped bridge a lot of those divides.”

“He was a kind man, that’s the main thing,” said retired KAB executive director Harriet Lange. “He was a good leader of KAB, and a consensus builder. That was what I guess you’d call his style of leadership.”

Hill left KANU in 1997 to work for KU’s University Relations Department, where he remained until his retirement in 1999.

Stadium voice of the Jayhawks

In addition to his work in broadcasting, Hill was perhaps best known among sports fans as the voice on the stadium public address system at KU football and men’s basketball games, where he called games for 21 years starting in 1982.

“He was terrific,” said KU Athletics Department spokesman Jim Marchiony. “He was the quintessential public address announcer, and by that I mean he knew how much to say, and he knew when to say it, and he knew how much emphasis to put on what he was saying.”

Marchiony said the job of PA announcer at a game requires a unique set of skills – someone “who does not believe he or she is bigger than the game itself, or more important than the game itself. You want someone who knows to be instructive but not intrusive.”

After 21 seasons on the microphone, Hill stepped aside after the 2003-2004 season and was replaced by his friend Hank Booth.

Booth recalled a basketball game early in his first season after Hill retired when a referee came up to the table before the game and asked, “Where’s Howard?”

“I said he’s retired and I’m the new guy,” Booth said. “He said ‘I’m glad to meet you, but you have very big shoes to fill.’ In most officials’ opinion, (Hill) was best announcer in the Big Eight conference, which is now the Big 12. And I just thought, ‘well there’s no pressure in that one.'”

Hill also served on the Lawrence City Commission from 1982 to 1987.

Funeral services were held Thursday. Hill is survived by two daughters, Melissa Dawn Wilson, of Lawrence, and Tiffiney Leigh Beffort, of Shawnee, and three grandchildren, Drake, Brandon and Britney.