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UA professor remembered as honest, hard-working man

Family, friends and colleagues are mourning the death of former UA professor Fredrick Hill, who died of an apparent heart attack Friday night at McKale Center. He was 63.

Hill, who retired from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department in May, collapsed during the second half of the men's basketball game against New Mexico State.

"He was honest beyond reproach," said Roger Hill, Hill's son.

Hill was a devoted Wildcat basketball fan who attended more than 500 games since he came to the University of Arizona in 1963.

"My father died in his home away from home - the McKale Center," he said. "He lived and breathed going to those games."

UA Athletic Director Jim Livengood said he did not know Hill that well but recognized his outstanding character and devotion to the basketball team.

"He was a wonderful, wonderful man and a great supporter of UA basketball," Livengood said.

Hill first complained he was having chest pains on Thursday afternoon. He checked into Northwest Medical Center, 6200 N. La Cholla Blvd., that afternoon and stayed overnight to take some tests, Roger Hill said.

He was released Friday morning.

Doctors from the hospital were unavailable for comment regarding the circumstances of Hill's tests or release.

Sarma Vrudhula, an ECE professor and a colleague of Hill's for seven years, said Hill's place of death was not coincidental.

"UA Wildcat basketball was his life. I think it was preordained in many ways," Vrudhula said.

When Vrudhula applied at the UA in 1992, it was Hill who interviewed him and ultimately convinced him to accept the job offer. During his undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California, Vrudhula had previously used one of the three textbooks that Hill co-authored.

"He was one of the best. He's an old timer, so he took on an increased amount of effort dealing with students," said Vrudhula, adding that he considers Hill the patriarch of the ECE department.

"We're all going to miss him very, very dearly," he said.

Troy Saline, an electrical engineering sophomore, is enrolled in ECE 274, a digital logic class that Hill agreed to teach this semester because the department was shorthanded.

Saline said Hill was the consummate professional.

"Outside of being a genuinely nice guy, if you were having problems, everyone knew that you could come up and talk to him," he said.

Fredrick James Hill, 63, was born on Sept. 2, 1936 in Las Vegas and grew up in nearby Boulder City, Nev. He graduated from Boulder City High School in the mid-1950s and went on to the University of Utah, where he would eventually earn his doctorate in electrical engineering in the early 1960s.

Hill served in the U.S. Army from 1961 to 1963, when he was hired to teach by the ECE department. During the 1970s, he served on an international committee that sought to standardize hardware language.

In 1989, Hill was in China giving a speech on digital logic when the Tiananmen Square riot in Beijing broke out. He has also lectured in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Hill was also an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he was the high priest group leader in the Wildwood Park Ward.

"I feel he was a rare blend of the tenderhearted, the compassionate and the intellectual," said Ron Jefferies, a bishop in Hill's ward.

Hill served three terms on the Marana Unified School District School Board between 1972 and 1988, stepping down only so his wife could become a counselor at Tortolita Junior High School, which falls under the jurisdiction of MUSD.

Hill is survived by his wife, Marie Featherstone Hill; his children, Sidney Rigby of Tucson, Suzanne Risk of Ruckersville, Va., Douglas Hill of Gilbert, James Hill of Tucson, Roger Hill of Tucson, and Michael Hill of Tucson; his mother, Ruby Rasmussen Hill of Tucson; and 16 grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held Wednesday at 3 p.m. at the Tucson West Stake Center, 3530 W. Magee Road.

In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to The University of Arizona Foundation or the Marana Foundation for Educational Excellence.