Larry Kusch

Legislature reporter

Larry Kusch didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life until he attended a high school newspaper editor’s workshop in Regina in the summer of 1969 and listened to a university student speak glowingly about the journalism program at Carleton University in Ottawa.

A year later, the Saskatchewan farm boy was in the nation’s capital, witnessing tanks rumble down Ottawa’s streets during the October Crisis and attending J-school. He’s forever grateful that he did.

Larry is one of two Free Press legislature reporters working out of the Manitoba Legislative Building. He also writes on health. In more than two dozen years with the newspaper, he’s covered the agriculture, business and provincial beats, been a general assignment reporter, worked on the night desk as a copy editor and assigned local news reporters.

Before joining the Free Press, he toiled at the Brandon Sun and Western Producer farm newspaper. He also taught high-school English for a year (one year was enough to send him back to journalism) and also spent a brief period editing how-to publications for farmers. While working his way through university, he worked for a year as a bartender in an Ottawa cocktail lounge. (He can still make a mean martini.)

A fair-weather cyclist, Larry can’t wait every spring for the snow to disappear so he can ride his bike. He thinks baseball is the best sport that was ever invented. And he loves living downtown, where he’s walking distance to work and most amenities. He is married with one daughter.