Larsen operated a potato farm near Firth in Bingham County.
First elected to the state legislature in 1966, he served six terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, the last two as speaker.
He was the Republican nominee in the 1978 Idaho gubernatorial election,[2][3][4] but was defeated by the Democratic incumbent, John Evans of Malad.
Following his first wife's death and his remarriage to Alva Lu Hebdon, he returned to the legislature when he was elected to the Idaho Senate in 1990 and the House of Representatives in 1992 and 1994.
[1] Larsen died in Bingham County, Idaho at age 85 in 2005;[6] he and his first wife Barbara (1920–1990) are buried at the Riverside-Thomas Cemetery in Blackfoot.