[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 177 (Friday, October 24, 2025)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         REMEMBERING LARRY REA

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 24, 2025

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life of a fine 
newspaperman, a title he cherished in his more than 57 years as a 
journalist in Memphis. As many have said since he passed on Saturday, 
September 27, 2025, at age 82, he touched more lives than probably any 
Memphis journalist by covering the not-glamorous but important beats of 
high school sports and the outdoors, hunting and fishing as both a 
reporter for The Commercial Appeal and as a host of his radio call-in 
show.
  Mr. Rea went to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he 
met his wife Miriam, and covered the Razorbacks as a freelance student 
journalist. He then worked for The Arkansas Democrat in Little Rock. In 
1967, he took The Commercial Appeal job and moved to Memphis, covering 
Friday night football games and getting to know the players, their 
parents, teachers, coaches and fans. It was great--he would say 
``gREAt''--way to get immersed in the community and feel its pulse. As 
a Daily Memphian columnist and longtime former Rea colleague and friend 
Geoff Calkins put it: ``He didn't write about mayors or city council 
members or NBA stars. He wrote about the kid who pitched a three-hitter 
or the girl who scored the winning goal for her soccer team or the 
neighbor who caught a particularly fat bass . . . He wrote about your 
neighbors and friends.''
  After 21 years of high school sports, in 1988 he moved on the 
outdoors beat and continued supporting the paper's Mid-South Fishing 
Rodeo that helped thousands of kids learn and love fishing. After his 
official retirement from The Commercial Appeal in 2001, he wrote for 
the DeSoto Times and served as editor of Mid-South Hunting & Fishing 
News and hosted the Saturday morning show ``Outdoors with Larry Rea'' 
on WMC-AM for more than 25 years. His final show was August 30, 2025. 
Over his long career he was named a member of the Legends of the 
Outdoors Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Writers Hall of Fame and 
received the Tennessee Wildlife Federation Conservation Communicator 
Award in 2022.
  I express my condolences to his wife and children, his extended 
family and his many friends and colleagues. Larry Rea was a Mid-South 
institution, and he will be missed.

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