13 things about Baron Hill
1. He was born June 1953 and raised in Seymour, Ind.
2. He played sports at Seymour High School and in 2004 still held the Indiana State record in the 100 yard dash. He was named to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000 along with Larry Bird.
3. He graduated from Furman University in South Carolina, where he was a starting guard on the basketball team, and a history major.
4. He returned to Seymour to run an insurance and real estate business.
5. Hill and his wife Betty have been married for 32 years. They have three daughters: Jennifer, Cara, and Elizabeth.
6. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1982.
7. Hill ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1990. During his campaign, he walked the length of Indiana to meet voters. The first voter he met was reportedly "an intoxicated man trying to sell old record albums in his front yard."
8. After losing the Senate race, Hill worked as a Merrill Lynch financial analyst and was appointed by Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh as director of the state student assistance commission.
9. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998.
10. In 2000, his elder brother, Tony Hill of Mountainburg, Ark., endorsed Hill's Republican opponent, Michael Bailey, in the congressional race, saying the two brothers didn't agree on more than half of the campaign issues.
11. He has a picture hanging in his office of a frog choking a pelican attempting to eat it that, according to Hill, indicates one should never give up.
12. Hill considered running for Indiana governor in 2004, but decided the time was not right and that family and professional considerations played a part in his decision.
13. In November 2005, he formally announced his campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, saying: "The call to public service is stronger than the politics of fear."
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