Pine Island Power Couple: Spotlight on Chuck and Nancy Koucky
Chuck and Nancy Koucky met in a college geology class in 1971. They were good friends, Nancy says, grabbing one another to go to a movie or get a pizza.
“I transferred colleges, but then moved back and contacted old friends,” said Nancy. “Chuck answered by putting his business card under my door and the rest is history.”
It was only a year after that the Kouckys were married, but by then they’d known one another for several years. The couple worked together at their own art gallery for 30 years.
“We were studio artists,” Chuck said. “I was a potter and she was a weaver. She would help me with the pots and do all the glazing, then we started our own galleries and we had one in Michigan and one on Florida.”
These days, Nancy does all the graphic work for them, and enjoys woodworking for fun, and Chuck has a woodshop, where he makes cigar box instruments. He has also been a licensed boat captain for the past 30 years. Although they are sometimes separated, such as when he takes trips driving boats for the Boy Scouts, Nancy says they work well together.
“A lot of couples don’t know if they could spend 24/7 together,” said Nancy. “But we started out that way.”
Nancy said their staff has commented on the constant communication the couple share, which she attributes, in large part, to his inclination to look at things differently and find a perspective she hadn’t considered.
“He always thinks of a different angle,” Nancy said. “I find myself talking to him about everything because he’ll think of a different angle — I don’t always like it, but he’ll think of another part of it that I wouldn’t have thought about.”
Once the pair had children, she says, they would purpose to go out without them, frequently having date nights. Although they often work together, they don’t tell one another absolutely everything, which, according to Nancy, lends to an air of mystery they’ve been able to maintain within the relationship.
“I tell everybody this,” said Nancy, “he can still surprise me, he can still make me belly laugh, and I am never bored being married to this man.”
Chuck says Nancy is an asset to the island, bringing a spirit of volunteerism and helping everyone she meets, especially newcomers.
“I’m just not the people-person that she is,” said Chuck. “I’ll help her at home by finding answers to questions people have and we’ll talk about what she’s doing.”
“Chuck is an asset,” said Nancy, “because he’s such a jack of all trades. He can throw a pot, he can make a guitar, he can sail a boat. He knows what to do with every tool on the face of the planet. He offers knowledge and creativity. His students love him because he’s very laid back, he never tells them they have to do something a certain way.”
In watching her husband’s students, Nancy says, his nature to let them explore and do things themselves is something she admires.
The draw of Pine Island for the Kouckys is the community, they say, admitting this is the longest they’ve ever lived in one place.
“It’s the people here,” said Chuck.
“I tell people when they move here not to get frustrated that everybody seems to know about everything, because the reverse side of that is if you need help, there is always somebody here to help you,” Nancy said. “We made more friends here in one year than 12 years in Naples. Everybody here is so welcoming.”