“I had been at the University a little over a year when friends working at WTVT called to tell me the station was looking for an announcer," recalls Jerry.  "I jumped at the chance to audition, which consisted of an ad-libbed mattress commercial.  Program Director Monte Gurwit put me on the payroll as a weekend booth announcer."  For his announcing efforts, Jerry would be earning the princely sum of $2.00 per hour at WTVT.

A common practice for broadcasting talent with unusual or hard to pronounce (or spell) names is to assume a 'stage' name; something nice and easy for the public to remember.  Krumbholz (a name of German origin pronounced crumb-holz) never thought of taking on a different name. People had always accepted his name without question and he felt it was one audiences would remember…and he was right.

Jerry's co-workers included Ed Scott (pictured at left) Paul Reynolds, Will Sinclair, Roger Reddy and Terry Saint.  He recalls that Sinclair was called “our mad Indian” because of his quick temper…he was of Cherokee heritage.  The team eventually included Don Harris, who went on to host "Pulse Extra" and later became a nationally known NBC reporter. “We had something like six guys (announcers), one or two part timers, to cover every minute on the air seven days a week including holidays.  We alternated shifts periodically and whatever shows fell into the various shifts were the ones we did.  Every announcer had his turn at doing The Ernie Lee Show, Mary Ellen’s Popeye Playhouse, station breaks from the booth, floor commercials…whatever needed to be done.  It was lots of fun.”

Jerry was fascinated with television from the first minute.  For a guy who was fairly new to Tampa and completely new to television, he became almost an instant celebrity to thousands of Tampa Bay area viewers.  It was 1956 and still 'early television' when management and talent were deciding what the medium was really all about.