This week’s A Portage Life in the Spotlight is Larry Tharp. Tharp has been a teacher in Portage for 27 years and owns his own lawn care business,
Coach's Cut.
Tharp is a graduate of Merrillville High School and moved to Portage 27 years ago when he began teaching. He is married and has two adult children, both of which reside in Evansville, Indiana. Tharp, who grew up in Merrillville, has always wanted to coach. In his career he has coached wrestling and football. Tharp decided to move to Portage when he was offered a job and it provided him the opportunity to be close to his family while teaching and coaching.
“It was close so I could still coach and teach while being close to my kids and being home with my family. Being in close proximity really helped” Tharp said.
Tharp is an avid hunter and fisherman when he is not out on his mower cutting grass. He enjoys spending time with his family and setting aside time to help out at Portage High School as a coach and summer school teacher.
“I am a pretty happy guy” he added.
Tharp initially never planned on teaching as a career. More than anything he wanted to be a coach for sports and decided to teach while in college and has grown to love the profession.
“When you first get out of college, you know I wanted to play football in college and not get an education, but you learn real quickly” he said “When I first got a job teaching, all I wanted to do was coach, coach, coach. Coaching doesn’t pay the bills, teaching does. I have spent 27 years teaching, love it, it is the greatest thing to do. You can spend time with family and I just enjoy kids and working out and learning things from them. “
Tharp loves spending time helping in the community and spending time with his family and friends outside of being outdoors hunting, fishing or mowing yards after school gets out.
“I enjoy the 7 to 3 everyday. I don’t want to work midnights” he said “I want to be out in the community doing things.”
Thirteen years ago Tharp started Coach's Cut, a lawn care service company that he runs. The idea of calling it Coach's Cut came from the constant name that people referred to him as, Coach.
“You know they ask who is that and people respond, that’s Coach” he said.
Being a 27 year citizen of Portage, Tharp has seen his fair share of changes in the Portage community and recounts that the improvements to the Lakefront and River Walk park as the biggest.
“A lot of it’s for the good. I love to go perch fishing and up at Lake Michigan, the improvements that they have made along the river fronts are a great thing, that’s awesome” he said.
Both of Tharp’s children have moved out of Portage, each residing in Evansville, Indiana. So that begs the question, would you ever imagine living somewhere else?”
“No, the business keeps me here. Plus, I love to fish and Lake Michigan is three miles from our house. I mean you are sitting right there and it is a beautiful thing. Plus, with the contacts and the people that I know here, both of my children reside in Evansville, but I’ll stay here, this is awesome” he added.
Tharp is also a big supporter of the Portage Township YMCA. His wife works there during the mornings and during the summer school months, he takes the physical education classes there twice a week to work out with trainer Linda Mendez.
“We work a lot with the YMCA. The Y is one of the best things, my wife works there in the mornings” he said “Those people are wonderful, they do great things for other people around town.”
For all he does for his community in the Portage Schools and his support of beautifying the city, Larry Tharp is most definitely a Portage Life in the Spotlight.
When asked if he had something else to add, Tharp said “No, but I’ll probably be out fishing in a couple of hours.”
Do you know of a Portage Life in the Spotlight? Email us at share@portagelife.com and we will add that person to our ever growing list.