When Leroy Duvall refers to himself as one of the younger people, it's despite his 64 years, but it's without a trace of irony. Part of it is that he is the President of the Fleur de Lis Society, a club half the size of what it once was because its membership is slowly passing from old age. And part of it is that, after 30 years of shrimping on the Gulf, his body still feels young. Eventually, the economic repercussions of endangered turtles forced him to retire from shrimping, and when Hurricane Katrina washed away his bakery, he retired from that, too. Mr.

Corky Hire may have had an inauspicious beginning to his shrimping career, taking over for his ailing father, but now 70 years later, his memories of working the Gulf are almost all fond ones. His time on boats, through the 30's and 40's, was during a time when Biloxi's seafood industry was growing tremendously and ail schooners were being replaced by powered boats, and Croatian families were making the shift from immigrant laborers to cannery owners and professionals.

Even in a town like Biloxi, it's not often someone can claim seven generations of fishing heritage. The line in Frank Parker's family may have stopped at six when his parents pushed him to go to college and consider other lines of work, but the years of growing up playing on the dock had him pretty well convinced he was going to go back out onto the Gulf. So at 24 years old, 12 credits shy of graduating, Frank decided to listen to the sirens and bought himself a boat. The funny thing, though, is that his parents listened to them too.

Georgo Trojanovich is, as he says, "The only real Croatian in Biloxi." But in a city as proud as this one is of its Croatian heritage, everyone here knows what he means: with the arrival of Croatian families tailing off by the second half of the 20th century, Georgo is one of the few - yes, perhaps only - Croatian-born immigrants in town. A distant relative of a local restaurateur, Georgo came as a teenager to escape Tito's Communist regime, working as a dishwasher at Mary Mahoney's restaurant.

James McNeill Jr. was born at Indian Pass, just west of Apalachicola, in 1924. His father, James McNeill Sr., was originally from North Carolina. Working the rivers rafting timber downstream, James Sr. eventually made his way to Florida. Soon after, he got into the turpentine business and eventually acquired some 13,000 acres of Florida wilderness. James Sr. passed away in 1941. In 1947 James Jr. married Betty Lane. Together, they established the Indian Pass Seafood Company.

Originally from Tennessee, Charles Pennycuff's parents moved their family to Eastpoint in 1971. Since Charles first saw the bay at the age of seventeen, he has made his living from it. Over the years, Charles has done it all. He has shrimped, oystered, crabbed, and even grunted for worms. His son, Rex, worked the bay, too. Like a lot of folks, though, they wanted something more reliable. In 1993 Charles opened Fisherman's Choice Bait & Tackle in Eastpoint. He has no employees, only his family.

A. L. "Unk" Quick has been an oysterman all of his life. Originally from Wewahitchka, Florida, his family moved to Eastpoint in 1949, when Unk was just nine years old. He quit school at the age of sixteen and started oystering the very next day. In 1964 he proposed to his wife, Gloria, and she started shucking oysters right away. They have worked together ever since. He catches, she shucks. Some days, they'll go out on the bay together. He catches, she culls. In the off-season they pick up odd jobs and do yard work. Whatever they're doing, they make a good team.

Born to a barber and a beautician in 1942, Corky Richards did not grow up in the seafood industry, but he got in it as soon as he could. Corky's family moved to Apalachicola when he was a teenager, and he immediately got to work on the bay. Using his carpentry skills, he began to make his own oyster tongs. One year in the off-season, a local marine supply company asked him to make tongs for the store. Soon, Corky was making and selling tongs to oystermen throughout Franklin County. Business was so good that Corky opened a woodworking shop.

Janice Richards was born in Eastpoint in 1945 and has been shucking oysters since 1960. Her mother taught her the trade when she was a girl. Early on she learned to take her time to shuck a clean oyster. Janice married her husband, Johnny Richards, an oysterman, at the age of fourteen. They've worked at a handful of seafood houses over the years, and today they work together at Tommy Ward's oyster house, 13 Mile. Johnny gets the oysters, and Janice shucks his catch. But these years of shucking have taken their toll.

Bobby Shiver was born at 13 Mile in 1939. His father oystered and his mother shucked for Miller's Fish & Oyster Company. As a child, Bobby remembers building toy boats out of scrap metal and wood. In the 1960s he began to build boats as a hobby. For years, creating boats was an avocation. Working the bay and building houses was Bobby's vocation. But when he got older, he began learning more about the trade from local boat builders. With a seventh-grade education, Bobby mastered the craft and made hundreds of boats. He never worked from a design.