Herman Ray Hill

Herman Ray Hill, also known as Coach Hill (born October 1937),[1] is a rancher and a retired educator and coach from Dry Creek in Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, who is a Democratic former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 32 in Allen, Beauregard, and Calcasieu parishes in the southwestern portion of his state.

Hill was term-limited and ineligible to seek a fifth term in the legislature in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 20, 2007. Lawmakers are now restricted to three terms. Instead his wife, Dorothy Sue Hill, also a retired educator, was elected to succeed him in the House[2] and is completing her second term in the office. She defeated Republican convert James David Cain, an outgoing member of the Louisiana State Senate and a Democratic former state representative who had coincidentally preceded Herman Hill in the same state House seat prior to 1992.[3]

Hill was a coach for the Beauregard Parish School Board. He and his wife own and operate T&H Hereford Farms.[4] The couple has one son, Craig Ray Hill[4] (born July 1968),[5] an attorney in Allen Parish.

Hill was first elected in House District 32 in a runoff contest on November 16, 1991, with his fellow Democrat Thomas M. "Tommy" Abrusley (born c. 1959) of Oakdale in Allen Parish. Hill polled 10,318 votes (56 percent) to Abrusley's 8,132 (44 percent).[6] In the previous nonpartisan blanket primary on October 19, Abrusley and Hill emerged, respectively, as the top two vote-getters over five opponents, four of whom were Democrats.[7]

Hill was unopposed for his second, third, and fourth terms in 1995, 1999, and 2003.