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.