Lawrence A. "Larry" Wallace '42 studied and played hard at the University of Wichita, where he majored in economics and was a quarterback on the football team. Then, as he explained in a letter to the WSU Alumni Association years later, "Most of us went off to the war." The WWII veteran and Bronze Star recipient served in the U.S. Navy from 1942-46 aboard PT boats in the Southwest Pacific.
After the war, Wallace studied industrial relations at the University of California at Berkeley — graduating with an MBA in 1948 and embarking on an impressive career in newspaper labor relations. In California, he was the industrial relations director for the San Jose Mercury before moving to Michigan and working as labor relations manager for the Detroit Free Press and with the Detroit News.
In 1973, he joined The Washington Post, where he directed labor relations for 15 years before retiring as vice president in 1988.
In 2002, he and his wife Ann established a scholarship at WSU to help support aspiring journalists.
Looking back on his days at WU, Wallace once recalled: "Most of us football players lived at the old dormitory at 3310 E. 16th Street, which had the reputation of being a rather wild and raucous place, which indeed it was. I remember the 1937 football victory over the University of Kansas, 18 to 7."
Larry Wallace died March 1 in Port Orange, Fla.
