Bill Sherrill is 80 and insists on going to work every day, but don't let that fool you -- the man knows how to have fun.

You can tell just by looking around his office at Norvell Fixture & Equipment Co., the food service equipment company he joined nearly 50 years ago.

Right under the quotation "Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill" is the gigantic autographed tennis ball that served as the sign-in sheet at the avid player's 75th birthday party.

There's the heavily thumb-tacked world map that shows more than 100 countries he and his wife, Betty, have visited during the past 30 years.

On his desk is a stack of business cards that contain only two words: "My Card."

It is here, the president's office at Norvell's Park West Drive warehouse-showroom, that Mr. Sherrill can be found every weekday.

"If I didn't like what I was doing, I wouldn't come in here every day," he said.

Many people have never heard of his company. Those who have aren't quite sure what it is. But nearly every school cafeteria employee in a 300-mile radius has heard of Norvell.

Mr. Sherrill's company supplies schools, hospitals, jails, military installations -- just about any place that serves food to large groups of people -- with kitchen equipment.

The company sells everything from oven mitts and spatulas to industrial-strength food mixers and walk-in refrigerators.

The 20-employee operation bids on institutional construction projects throughout Georgia, South Carolina and parts of North Carolina.

It works with the general contractor and its architects to help design a kitchen and, after the building is constructed, installs the fixtures and equipment, doing everything but hooking up the water and power -- a job handled by the contractors' electricians and plumbers.

The company was started in 1943 after Mr. Sherrill's father-in-law, Marion Norvell, left his job as a salesman for Augusta's now-defunct Hollingsworth Candy Co. to begin selling soda fountain equipment to the drugstores that were his candy customers.

He called on Mr. Sherrill to help him run the business as it began to take off in 1960. When Mr. Sherrill arrived from his native Alabama, Norvell was selling pots and pans out of leased space in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' Local 1579 building on Reynolds Street.

As the years passed, Norvell went from supplying mom-and-pop stores and restaurants to bidding on major kitchen equipment contracts at nursing homes and military installations.

Today, public schools are the company's biggest customer.

"There was no school lunch program when I was in grammar school," Mr. Sherrill said. "Lunch was a grocery bag with a sandwich in it."

In the big house

William Serlie Sherrill Jr. was born in Montgomery, Ala., on Aug. 27, 1927, the only child of William and Herd Sherrill.

The self-described "old tennis bum" played his first matches on a makeshift court on the dirt road in front of his childhood home.

"I learned to play tennis on a clay court," he said jokingly.

Mr. Sherrill's father was a U.S. marshal who transported prisoners to and from the Montgomery federal courthouse. As a teenager during World War II, Mr. Sherrill accompanied him on many transports, some as far away as Oklahoma and Indiana.

"The only reason they let me go is because there was a shortage of able-bodied men," he said.

The father and son would drive back to Alabama after picking up a prisoner, making overnight stops at city and county jails along the way. They slept in the same cells that the prisoners did, except that the door to their cell was never locked.

"I've had the privilege of spending the night in jails all over the country," he said.

Most of the trips were uneventful, although the withdrawal symptoms of one drug-addled prisoner forced Mr. Sherrill's father to make an emergency stop in Tennessee at a doctor's office, where the prisoner was allowed to receive a shot of narcotics "to tide him over," Mr. Sherrill said.

Mr. Sherrill said he never considered a career in law enforcement.

"I've seen all the jails I want to see," he said.

Mr. Sherrill enrolled in Huntingdon College, a small Methodist university in Montgomery, after graduating from high school. He graduated with a degree in history and, unable to find work, joined the Army on Dec. 7, 1950.

He said he learned many things in the Army, including that he was not cut out to be a soldier.

"I've always said the U.S. military suffered two disasters on Dec. 7," he said with a smile. "One was in 1941, the other was nine years later."

Mr. Sherrill's service coincided with the Korean War, but he never saw combat. The history degree that he was unable to parlay into a job after college helped him get an assignment as a researcher for a volume of books the Army was compiling on World War II.

He also attended the Army's defense finance and accounting school at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.

The experience allowed him to land a job in the finance department of the Alabama State Military Department after his discharge from the Army. From there he went into National Cash Register Co.'s (now NCR Corp.) sales training program, where his previous experience with accounting machines and cash registers gave him a leg up.

It was around this time that he met his future wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Norvell, an Augusta native who was attending Huntingdon College, his alma mater. After a brief courtship, the two were married in 1953 and made Montgomery their home until his father-in-law's business proposition seven years later.

Mr. Sherrill was initially apprehensive about the prospect of moving to Augusta to go into business with his father-in-law.

"We were both aware of how that often doesn't work," he said. "But he and I were able to survive."

Party time

In Augusta, Mr. Sherrill said he befriended several other "young and restless" businessmen who were seeking to make a change in the local political landscape, which was then controlled by "Cracker Party" Democrats.

What he and contemporaries including Roy Simkins, Chess Howard and Frank Troutman did in the early 1960s was nothing less than create a foothold for the Republican Party in Augusta.

"Bill was a pioneer in the new Republican party," said former state Sen. Bob Beckham, who was recruited to the GOP by Mr. Sherrill and succeeded him as the party's county chairman. "He was very instrumental in getting the party going."

During Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful 1964 presidential bid, Mr. Sherrill and other party volunteers helped bring Goldwater's running mate, New York U.S. Rep. William E. Miller, to Augusta for a Broad Street rally that attracted several hundred people.

"I tell people I was a Republican before it was popular," Mr. Sherrill said. "You just didn't vote Republican; it was a dirty word."

Mr. Sherrill, a member of the Republican National Committee's Eisenhower Committee, the party's lifetime achievement designation, met former President Eisenhower once during his numerous trips to Augusta National Golf Club.

The encounter took place shortly after the former president's plane touched down at the airport.

The former five-star general visited with Mr. Sherrill and a few other local GOP backers after greeting members of Augusta National and Fort Gordon.

Mr. Sherrill said he asked Eisenhower if he would like to become a member of the county's young Republicans group, which cost $3 to join. He said Eisenhower obliged and handed him a $20 bill.

"All of us standing there didn't have $17 in change between us," Mr. Sherrill said. "I turned to (an Augusta Chronicle reporter) and said, 'Make sure you get this in the paper. Let the people know that not all of us Republicans are rich.' "

Likewise, Mr. Sherrill had fun with his Democrat-leaning landlords at the IBEW.

"We had lots of fun swapping bumper stickers with them," he said. "They were good landlords and we enjoyed our association with them."

Norvell Fixture & Equipment Co. grew throughout the 1960s and 1970s, selling food service equipment to individuals in addition to area restaurateurs and chains such as Western Sizzlin' and WifeSaver.

By the 1980s, the company had outgrown its space at the union hall. Norvell built its current offices on Park West Drive near the Interstate 20-Belair Road interchange in 1988, three years after the death of company founder Marion Norvell.

Taking out contracts

Norvell's restaurant supply business has declined as most eateries are now part of national and regional chains that either work with national suppliers or have an in-house equipment company.

Individual consumers still occasionally come in to buy a high-quality kitchen knife or professional grade cookware, but nearly 90 percent of the company's revenue these days comes from bidding on large contracts, such as school cafeteria kitchens, which average $300,000 to $400,000 each.

It is far from easy money.

Margins in the business are fairly low, which requires Norvell to maintain a steady volume of work to turn a meaningful profit.

Cutting into those profits are frequent construction delays, skyrocketing stainless steel prices and rising equipment costs from equipment manufacturers.

"The secret in this business is not what you sell it at, it's what you buy it at," Mr. Sherrill said.

The sometimes terse negotiations between suppliers and contractors are duties that fall on Mr. Sherrill's son, Will, who joined the business in 1979.

"I'm the one who gets to yell at everyone," said Will, who serves as the company's corporate secretary and treasurer.

Bill Norvell, who is no relation to the company's founder, rounds out the remainder of the management team. Mr. Norvell, a vice president in charge of sales and business development, joined the company in 1969, a time when the company's showroom was much more modest.

"We didn't have anything in there but a stack of glasses," he said.

Mr. Sherrill said he considers himself "blessed" to have a top-notch management team and a cadre of long-time employees, most of whom have worked for the company for more than 20 years.

Mr. Sherrill is well beyond retirement age, but he has no desire to retire.

"I don't want 'nothing' to do," he said. "I think that helps you get old quicker."

Staying busy

Though he now walks with a cane, Mr. Sherrill has done a good job of fighting the effects of aging by staying an active tennis player. He was one of the founders of the Newman Tennis Center and, until 10 years ago, was a regular player in tournaments.

He passed his love of the game on to all four of his children, two of whom, Will and Lela, attended Augusta State University and Brenau University, respectively, on tennis scholarships.

Mr. Sherrill remains one of Augusta State University's biggest athletic boosters, having been awarded both the Golden Jaguar Award and Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Award for creating an endowed scholarship in 1996 to help student athletes finish school after their athletic scholarship expires.

The $125,000 endowment, known as the Sherrill Classic Order Scholarship, has helped nearly 80 seniors finish their degrees during the past 11 years, ASU Athletic Director Clint Bryant said.

"Some of these kids wouldn't have been able to finish their college education without this assistance," he said. "Bill Sherrill's caring and dedication and loyalty to this athletics department has made the difference."

Mr. Bryant, a neighbor of Mr. Sherrill's, said he's never known Mr. Sherrill to miss an ASU basketball game as long as he is "in the country."

Of course, that's not all that often. Mr. Sherrill and his wife have been to all 50 states and more than 100 countries during the past three decades, taking as many as three excursions a year.

"Of all my clients, they certainly have traveled the most," said Nancy Parris, a representative with Augusta's Morris Travel agency, who has worked with the couple since 1995.

She said she believes the Sherrills enjoy their travels more than most of her customers because they have "such a beautiful attitude about the world we live in."

"Before he goes on a cruise, he finds out the nationalities of some of the crew on board and he'll learn some of their language before he goes so he can speak a few words to them," she said. "They get tickled when somebody comes in who can speak Swahili -- and Bill can speak some Swahili."

The man knows how to have fun.

Reach Damon Cline at (706) 823-3486 or damon.cline@augustachronicle.com.