Larry Fish, 56, former reporter at Inquirer

Larry Fish, 56, a versatile and gifted reporter who wrote elegantly about local businesses, regional transportation and the American West during a 20-year career with The Inquirer, died Saturday at his Center City home from complications of heart disease.

Mr. Fish, who began his career at the Utica Observer-Dispatch in New York state, arrived at The Inquirer in 1985 and covered almost every type of story, from the tribulations of SEPTA to the devastating wildfires in the West in the summer of 2000.

"I always felt he was a stellar reporter, and just as important, a really terrific colleague," said William K. Marimow, The Inquirer's editor. "He was accurate, thorough and fair."

Yesterday, friends and former colleagues recalled him as a giving person who was almost always fun to be around.

"He was a generous, generous guy," said Lon Teter, a New York Times editor who worked with Mr. Fish at The Inquirer and before that at the Wichita Eagle in Kansas, where both covered county government.

"Larry always had this delightful, wicked sense of humor," Teter said. "It was apparent very early in his reporting career."

Typical of Mr. Fish's wit was a brief 1990 item about the papier-mache landmarks depicting the Pep Boys, Manny, Moe and Jack. In an antismoking gesture, the cigar was being removed from Manny's hands.

"It's part of a subtle effort to clean up and freshen the appeal of the 1940s-era trademark trio," Mr. Fish wrote, "though the shiny hairstyles on Jack and Moe indicate they still have a Brylcreem dependency."

After leaving The Inquirer three years ago, Mr. Fish was a writer in HR Communications at Vanguard Group.  There he joined Craig Stock, a Vanguard principal and former Inquirer business editor.  At the Inquirer, Stock asid, "Other writers would sometimes go to Larry for help. I used to call him the 'lead doctor. "

"Man, could that guy write a lead," said Glenn Burkins, now a top editor at the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina and a former Inquirer reporter. "Whenever Fish told me he liked a lead of mine, I took it as high praise."

"Larry was a meticulous and elegant writer," said Paul Schweizer, an Inquirer business editor who worked with Mr. Fish.

When Mr. Fish, a railroad buff, left the business staff to become transportation writer, he was able to unite his vocation with an avocation.

"He had a lifetime love affair with trains," said his sister, Tricia Batchelder. He had model trains as a child, including a Lionel Flyer. "We had to go see trains on vacation," she said.

When Mr. Fish became a national correspondent stationed in Denver, he again had a chance to pursue one of his passionate interests, the West.

Mr. Fish was born in Independence, Mo., and the family moved to Leawood, Kan., when he was a child. He was always devoted to Kansas, said Connie Langland, a former Inquirer colleague and a Kansas native. One day she and Mr. Fish staged a Kansas lunch party in the newsroom, complete with Gene Autry music.

Mr. Fish also loved Philadelphia, said longtime friend Paul Steinke.

"He was very passionate about his adopted home," Steinke said. Mr. Fish was smitten by the city's still-modest skyline when he arrived in the mid-1980s.

Mr. Fish was a founder of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, said another former colleague, Michael Martin Mills.

Mr. Fish was active in the Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Society Hill and served on the ruling council for a time, said the Rev. Charles Andrews. His wife, Stephanie Andrews, recalled that Mr. Fish's succulent and flaky biscuits were the hit of church suppers.

Mr. Fish graduated from Shawnee Mission South High School in 1970 and the University of Kansas in 1974 with a degree in journalism. He later received a master's degree from the university.

After his stint at Utica, he worked at the Wichita paper and the St. Petersburg Times in Florida before coming to The Inquirer.

In addition to his sister, Mr. Fish is survived by another sister, Sally Axelson; his parents, William and June; and four nephews.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.