Hilligas retiring as ‘The Voice of Hamilton County’

For many years now his rich baritone has been known as the Voice of Hamilton County. And indeed, if there was something big going on in Aurora or one of the other surrounding communities -- be it a parade or a car show or a demolition derby or a wedding -- it was usually Hampton farmer Deryl Hilligas providing the commentary and playing the background music. But now, even though his voice is as clear and commanding as ever, Hilligas is hanging up his announcer’s mic and retiring the voice, for public address purposes at least. 
“It’s been kind of hard going around telling these people, this is my last year of doing it, you know,” Hilligas said recently. “But my body just kind of says it’s time. My mind is still there, but my body just says it’s getting too hard to move equipment around and set it up and tear it down, especially the tear down part. Because you’re late, you know, like you’re doing wedding dances or something like that, it’s late at night. And if I’m in Lincoln or Omaha, after you get loaded up, then you’ve got to drive back.” 
The list of “all these people” Hilligas was referring to is a long one, spanning half a century and going far beyond Hamilton County. Starting out in the early 70s with a DJ business, Hilligas and a couple of friends began providing music and announcing for wedding dances and other special events around the area, and eventually the requests came to serve as the emcee for other venues. For instance, for many years Hilligas has been the voice of both the Hamilton County Fair (for grandstand events like the annual demolition derby) and A’ROR’N Days. His A’ROR’N Days duties usually start on Thursday for Family Night where he announces the Aurora’s Got Talent show and the kids’ tractor pull. Saturday usually starts early at the pancake feed at the airport and then continues downtown to the parade and other special events. He has also provided a sound system and done the announcing for Aurora’s homecoming pep rally and also for Christmastime events in Aurora. 
In his home town of Hampton, Hilligas has announced football games and pep rallies and has been the voice of Booster Days in June for many years. More recently he has traveled to Seward on the Fourth of July to announce the car show and parade during that community’s annual celebration. He also served as the official announcer for Husker Harvest Days for several years.

A ‘weird’ beginning 
Hilligas’s introduction to what has become his part-time job all these years began, coincidentally, while he was farming and working part-time as a bartender. 
“It was a kind of a weird situation, because back in 1971 I was tending bar out at the country club here in Aurora,” he said. “And it was at Christmas time, and Bud Wall was the manager and one of the local banks -- I don’t remember which one -- had a Christmas party out there. They had a band hired that didn’t show up, so Bud asked me, ‘Gosh, what are we going to do to entertain these people?’ And I said, ‘Well, maybe we can just play some music for them or something.’ And Jim Vanderheiden happened to be at the bar. I talked to Jim and I said ‘Think we can do this? And Jim went home and got some stuff and I went home and got some stuff and we entertained them. They had a good time and we got some cash for doing it, and that was the inception of it. That’s how it got started.”
Naming their business D&J Enterprises (for Deryl and Jim) the men worked gigs together for about two years “because it was fun to do and we enjoyed it.” After a couple of years Gene Maul became a third partner in the business and the men worked together for about the next decade. 
Those early years in the DJ business involved much more than playing music and speaking into a microphone. To make their voices and the music heard required hundreds of pounds of speakers, amplifiers, turntables, mixers and other equipment, not the least of which was dozens and dozens of 45 rpm records that were carted around in a big box they referred to as “the coffin.” Over the years Hilligas has seen the transition from playing music from vinyl records to cassette tapes to CDs and finally from a laptop computer, which has lightened the load significantly, but hasn’t eliminated the need for the big speakers and amps he is ready to be done with carting around. 
Hilligas doesn’t remember exactly when he bought the other two men out of the business, but since then he has continued on his own but kept the name. He says it has been a perfect fit for him since it involved two of his lifelong passions — music and interacting with all kinds of people.

A love for music & people
“I have always enjoyed music,” he said. “I have sang at a lot of weddings and funerals and things like that. And we had a group at church that I sang with. When I was in high school, music was probably my favorite subject and my next favorite subject was probably football. And I’ve always enjoyed talking to people, too. A lot of people say that I’m a people person, and I will agree with that. I’ll strike up a conversation with anyone, you know, and in doing this through the years, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people and made a lot of friendships through it.”
Asked how many events he has worked over the years, Hilligas will say he couldn’t begin to guess, but he recalls in one year alone he did 72 separate gigs. Over the years, wedding dances have been the bread and butter of his DJ business and if you ask him how many of those he’s done he will tell you he hasn’t a clue. He estimates, however, that he has averaged between 20 and 25 a year. If one does the math on that, by conservative estimate, during his career Hilligas has entertained at more than a thousand wedding dances and has been a part of family weddings locally for at least two generations. 
“I used to hear that a teacher would say, ‘Well, I taught your parents’ or something like that and I always thought that was a bunch of bunk,” he said. “But I have had it twice now happen to me that when I did a wedding dance, I had done both the bride and the groom’s parents’ wedding dances. I know of several times that I’d done the bride or the groom’s parents, but twice that I’d done both of them, which was kind of unique.”
Asked if there was one particular song that rose to the top as the most requested over the years, Hilligas was hard pressed to name one, but he said the style of music played at dances generally depends on the makeup of the crowd and he has developed a talent for being able to read a crowd to determine what kind of music they like. However, sometimes he has read it wrong and the crowd he thought would be country music fans actually got out on the dance floor better for pop music. Of all the genres, though, he said 60s music always seems to get a positive reaction from the crowd. 
“I learned early on that you don’t play the music you want to listen to,” he said. “You play the music the people want to listen to, dance to, and let them dictate to you what music you’re going to play.”