9th CALLERLAB Convention 
Milestone Award
Jim and his wife, Dottie, learned to square dance in the early 1950’s and quickly became enthusiasts. Having the urge to become a caller, Jim attended callers classes in 1953 and 1954 and soon found himself involved in club and class calling.
Starting out with a secondhand sound system, Jim, who had received training in electronics while in the military, started nursing it back to health. He didn’t like the monitors then available, so he built a sloping front panel to direct the music to the caller and worked out a circuit to allow the monitor to play either music only, or a voice and music.
Jim then designed and built a complete amplifier with built in monitor circuitry and with more power than anything on the market. The Hilton Professional Sound System Model HP-95 was born and the beginning of Jim’s policy of building premium equipment for square dance callers was underway. From that point on Hilton sound systems flourished, solving many of the sound problems experienced by callers for many years.
Being a caller himself made the difference, for Jim realized that the goal of the caller’s equipment was not just to amplify the sound but to make it understandable.
Today, due in a large part to Jim Hilton, crowds as large as 18,000 can dance at one time, to a single caller.
The Hiltons retired in 1986, but Jim continues to research the design of loudspeakers and finds time for a bit of calling and teaching in the retirement community where they live, 