When he retired as editorial page editor of The Plain Dealer in 2009, Cleveland Magazine wrote that Brent Larkin “will go down in history as Cleveland’s last big power-broker journalist, the last guy who single-handedly pens the town’s conventional wisdom.” Larkin is a lifelong Greater Cleveland resident. He graduated from Brush High School in 1965, and in 1969 received a degree in journalism from Ohio University. He attended Cleveland-Marshall at night, while a columnist at the Plain Dealer. Larkin joined the Cleveland Press as a reporter in 1970. A year later he began covering Cleveland city government and in 1976 was named the newspaper’s politics editor. Larkin moved to the Plain Dealer in 1981, covering politics and later writing the column for the paper’s Metro section. In 1991, Larkin was named to head the Plain Dealer’s opinion pages. In 2002, he was inducted into the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame. Since retiring, Larkin has written a weekly column for Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. He and his wife, Mary Ann, live in Sagamore Hills. He has one son, Keven, a vice president of PNC Bank, and three grandchildren, William, Katherine and Emmett.