Unfair Park has the story. Thousands of North Texans knew the 84-year-old bespectacled man as the beloved “Mr. Peppermint” from his children’s show, Peppermint Place, which aired on WFAA for close to 40 years.  Our very own Mr. Rogers.

Others knew him, paradoxically enough, as the father of Gibby Haynes, the lead singer for the punk band, the Butthole Surfers. Many of us involved in the arts and theater also knew Jerry as  a sweet, funny local actor (he was a perennial in Theatre 3’s production of The Fantasticks).

Jerry had suffered from Parkinson’s for several years.  The last time I met him, outside of Premiere Video late last year, he was frail but still gentle-natured.