The 2008 Outstanding Alumnus award was given to Jim Sirmons, former executive vice president for CBS. He is also an inductee in the SPC Hall of Distinction.
Jim Sirmons
SPJC Alumnus ('37)
Former Executive Vice President for CBS
When Jim Sirmons graduated from St. Petersburg Junior College in 1937, he thought he was on his way to becoming a trial lawyer in St. Petersburg -- but broadcasting got in the way. What followed was a lengthy and fascinating career that began as a radio announcer/personality and ended 60 years later as executive vice president of CBS.
Sirmons expected to retire at about the normal retirement age, but the company asked him to stay on. Indeed, in 1994, when he was promoted from senior vice president to executive vice president of industrial relations, the announcement from CBS President Larry Tisch said, “We look forward to his continuing with CBS for many years to come.”
The announcement also said, “As the broadcasting industry’s foremost authority on industrial relations, Jim has, during his more than a half-century of service to CBS, changed the nature of employment in our industry.”
Sirmons finally retired in September of 2000. It was a lengthy and successful professional journey that began with speech, drama and a little broadcast training at SPJC.
“We did some radio at St. Petersburg Junior College,” Sirmons remembered during a recent conversation at his St. Petersburg home. “We did several radio dramas on WSUN at the end of the pier. Professor Augusta Center was our director and coach. For me, that was how the radio thing got started. I remember particularly doing excerpts from A Tale of Two Cities. I think I still have the script.”
Sirmons’ experiences at SPJC included a number of things that contributed to his success in the still-young broadcast industry – things like debate team competitions, speaking assignments and stage productions.
“SPJC had many wonderful programs,” he said. “They did full productions each year of a Shakespearian play and had major musical productions. There didn’t seem to be anything they wouldn’t take on. They had professor Augusta B. Center for speech and drama and Harriet Ridley for music programs, which ranged from quartets to choruses to major musical productions. They also had Donald Benn for debating and international relations programs.
“Debating was a very active program. Our debating team consisted of Mike Bennett (later president of the college), Dick Leavengood (who later became a judge), Tom Lefevre (who became a prominent Philadelphia attorney) and myself.”
All of those experiences, Sirmons said, contributed to his success in radio and, later, television.
After graduating from SPJC, Sirmons enrolled at the University of Florida, where he had to pay tuition and expenses.
Sirmons had a friend from St. Petersburg High School, Jim Walton, who was working at WRUF, the college-affiliated radio station. He wrote to Walton, asking for help in getting a job at WRUF. Walton got him an audition, and he got the job doing primarily news and an afternoon music program.
“That job paid my University of Florida bills,” he said.
It also led to an offer to do a morning show on WCKY, the CBS affiliate in Cincinnati. He resisted, explaining he was headed for law school. The station persisted – finally offering more money than beginning lawyers were making at the time. He accepted; broadcasting, not law, was to become his career.
And so he became an early morning personality on radio in Cincinnati. But after a year, Sirmons began to realize his real interest was broadcast management.
CBS in New York hired him as production supervisor in a department consisting of announcers, assistant directors, musicians, technicians and administrative personnel responsible for network operations, including network television when it got started in the late 1940s. He was made head of the department in 1948.
With the growth of television came growth and power among the talent and technical/production crafts and technicians, CBS moved Sirmons to director of labor relations. His experience with announcers and other talent influenced the decision.
Eventually, he became a vice president. Later, his title was changed to senior vice president.
Sirmons worked with many of the most familiar names in broadcasting. Among them: Edward R. Murrow, Lowell Thomas, Walter Cronkite and many Hollywood celebrities.
Sirmons’ Hollywood talent negotiations began in 1960 with the Screen Actors Guild, where the industry was confronted with major issues involving residual payments, use of motion pictures in television and pension/health plans. Ronald Reagan was president of the Guild. The result was an industry-wide strike. It spread to writers and musicians and had major effects on directors and other categories. From that point forward, Sirmons participated in all major Hollywood talent guild negotiations, often as chairman and spokesman for the networks.
In the 1970s, with his “normal” retirement age looming, Sirmons and his wife, Virginia, bought a “retirement home” on Snell Isle in St. Petersburg. She became so attached to it that she moved full-time to the new home. Sirmons commuted on the weekends, holidays and vacation – sometimes from New York and sometimes from California. They sold their home in New Canaan, Conn., and bought a condo in Greenwich, Conn., which he still uses on his trips to New York.
Today, at 89, Sirmons remains active as trustee on the two AFTRA funds and on various associations and church activities, while trying to play golf once a week with a group of friends who play “almost as poorly as I do.” His home contains photos and memorabilia of his CBS career, including an old CBS microphone and a framed “S” that once was part of the CBS logo over the entrance to the original CBS building on Madison Avenue.
He still thinks fondly of his days at St. Petersburg Junior College.
“The experience at the junior college is what made it all possible,” he said. “Professor Center really took me over and pushed me into everything. I probably owe my career to her. She was an exceptional person.”
Sirmons joins a long list of award recipients dating back to 1984.
The St. Petersburg College Alumni Association annually presents the Outstanding Alumnus Award to honor alumni who, through their accomplishments, have made meaningful contributions to their professional fields and their communities.
They are persons who exemplify how best to use and develop the education gained while at SPC and who, as a result, are outstanding representatives among our alumni.
