Every time an Ole Miss baseball player hits a home run or a football player makes a touchdown, Rebel fans are dazzled by strobing stadium lights that seem to dance in celebration.
This particular part of the University of Mississippi gameday experience was installed and is maintained by Advance Electric Company Inc. of Olive Branch, Mississippi.
“We’ve got a number of different projects going on currently,” said Eddy Odom, the company’s founder and CEO, who recently made a $250,000 gift to the Vaught Society, the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation’s (OMAF) fundraising level that provides student-athletes scholarships, academic guidance and wellness support.
“I wanted to make this gift because I love Ole Miss. Everyone there has been good to me, and I want to see the university grow bigger and better,” Odom said.
Advance Electric is a full-service electrical contractor specializing in commercial and industrial projects of all complexities and sizes throughout the mid-South. When Odom started the company in 1984, he was its only employee. Now it boasts more than 120 staff members and is responsible for wiring the many fixtures that build gameday buzz all over the Ole Miss campus and beyond.
Rebel basketball fans who enjoy the high-energy atmosphere of flashing lights, marquees and jumbotrons inside the Sandy and John Black Pavilion are seeing another example of Advance Electric’s state-of-the-art installations.
“Having those special effects at our stadiums makes the fan experience so much better. It’s truly pro-level stuff that we’re proud to be able to provide to Rebel Nation,” said Quinn Kavanagh, OMAF’s assistant athletics director for development. “We’ve greatly enjoyed working with Advance Electric and appreciate the Odoms’ desire to support our programs with a gift to the Vaught Society.”
Other Advance Electric projects on campus include custom features for Ole Miss Softball’s new stadium as well as lighting designs at the Manning Center, the Thad Cochran Research Center and the South Oxford Center facility.
Odom was raised a Rebel fan among the Tigers and Vols in Memphis, Tennessee, but he became hooked on attending games at Ole Miss in the early 1990s — the first time he joined throngs of fans in the Grove.
“I started tailgating when you could pull your car in right there at the corner of University Avenue and All-American Drive,” he recalled. “Then I was hooked. You were literally tailgating then.”
He even converted his wife, Gayle, a native Arkansan and Razorbacks fan.
The couple has four children: James and Justin Odom (a 2005 graduate of the UM School of Business Administration), Kyle Rodgers and Kaci Willard. They also have 10 grandchildren with granddaughter, Avery Odom, an accounting major at Ole Miss. Currently, three generations of Odoms work at Advance Electric with grandson, Hunter, a second-year apprentice.
In his free time, Eddy Odom raises beef cows — he’s got about 100 head — and Broncos (the vehicles, not the horses) on his north Mississippi land. He and his wife also enjoy traveling and spending time with family on their farm.
To make a gift to the Vaught Society, contact Quinn Kavanagh at kavanagh@givetoathletics.com or 309-634-1649.
By Bill Dabney/UM Foundation