Happy Birthday FOX 13: WTVT’s 70 years worth of memories, stories in Tampa Bay

Celebrating 70 years of FOX 13

FOX 13's Lloyd Sowers showcases FOX 13 over the past 70 years as we celebrate our anniversary of broadcasting the news.

TAMPA, Fla. - FOX 13 is celebrating our 70th anniversary. We have many longtime viewers who share our memories as well as a lot of new residents that we want to share our story with too.

The backstory:

In the early 1960s, WTVT Channel 13 had one of the best mobile broadcast units in the country. WTVT was chosen to load its trucks onto aircraft carriers for live coverage of the splashdown of space pioneers Alan Shepherd and John Glenn.

READ: FOX 13 celebrates Cynthia Smoot: Telling stories across Tampa Bay for 25 years

And speaking of the high seas, we had a parrot named "Popeye," who starred with Mary Ellen on the Channel 13 kids' show "Popeye's Playhouse." Teenagers loved Shock Armstrong, WTVT staffer Paul Reynolds dressed up as a Frankenstein look-alike and hosted scary movies.

Ernie Lee wasn’t scary at all, but he was homespun. Ernie hosted the first generation of WTVT's Good Day, playing country music on his guitar. He was also joined by other local musicians, like Barefoot Brownie. In the mid-1980s, Ernie was joined by a brand-new gal who read the news between songs. Her name was Kelly Ring.

Dig deeper:

It all came from inside our old studios on Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa. It was a converted restaurant with a leaky roof, until 1989 when the new building was built. It was just a few years before WTVT changed from CBS to FOX.

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A new building was constructed on the same spot with a new Tampa landmark, the SkyTower Radar Tower. The iconic tower was the brainchild of legendary WTVT Meteorologist Roy Leep. Decades earlier, Leep debuted the first live TV weather radar in the country.

In those days, WTVT was known as "Big 13." Our newscasts were called "Pulse." It was the first hour-long newscast in the Tampa Bay Region.

Paul Dellegatto came to WTVT in 1989 and has taken our weather department even further with the newest equipment and most qualified meteorologists.

Speaking of the sky, Channel 13 was the first station in the region to broadcast live from a helicopter. Longtime anchor Hugh Smith had the honor of providing that first broadcast from a helicopter.

MORE: Family always came first during Kelly Ring's 37-year news career

"Salty" Sol Fleichman was WTVT's sports anchor in the early days. Sol wore a captain's hat on the air and fishing was always his favorite sport. Andy Hardy became Sol's protégé, and in the years to follow Andy would become Channel 13's main sports anchor.

Andy did the first Buccaneers coach's show with John McKay, Tampa Bay's first coach, and several coaches who would follow. Andy had a superior knowledge of local sports and a sense of humor that landed him as a regular on the popular Ron & Ron morning show on the local rock station WYNF.

What they're saying:

So many of us at Channel 13 have stayed for so long that broadcasters from other cities ask how and why? There are several answers:

It's a great place to live. It's a great TV station. And there are great people to work with. To list them all is impossible.

I'll name some who I've worked with or known in their retirement: Jack Harris, Leslie Spencer, Kathy Fountain, Denise White, Frank Robertson, John Wilson, Ray Blush, Alan Wendt, Terry Casey, Ann Dwyer, Tom Curran, Kelly Craig, Warren Elly, and Kerry Sanders.

READ: Longtime 'Good Day Tampa Bay' anchor Tom Curran passes away

A couple of guys named Russell Rhodes and Charley Belcher came along to help us discover interesting places and people in our area. I know I'm leaving out many. Forgive me.

There have also been hundreds of people behind the scenes who've help make WTVT a great TV station. Those folks remain among my best friends made over my 38 years at WTVT. It's been a blast!

Happy Birthday FOX 13!

The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Lloyd Sowers, who took a deep dive into WTVT's archives of the past 70 years.

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