Nancy Hussey: Photographer, mom fosters surfing culture

Wade Spees // The Post and Courier

Since returning to the Lowcountry from Maryland in 1999, Nancy Hussey has spent thousands of hours at Charleston’s go-to surfing spot, the Washout at Folly Beach, as a photographer and volunteer for the Southern South Carolina District of the Eastern Surfing Association.

When it comes to the Charleston area surfing scene, nobody wears as many hats as Nancy Hussey, which is ironic for one big reason.

She hardly ever surfs.

And while the full-time volunteer works on organizing surfing contests, surfing-related charity events and fundraising year-round, it all crests in August with the two biggest surfing events in the Charleston area.

This month, the Governor's Cup of Surfing, which is the championship for the Southern South Carolina District of the Eastern Surfing Association, is Aug. 19-21. Three days later, the fourth annual Surfer's Healing camp for autistic children will be held on Folly Beach.

It's prime time for Folly's No. 1 surf mom.

Besides roles as co-director of the local ESA district, which hosts a dozen surfing contests from March to October, and Charleston team director for Surfer's Healing, Hussey also is the vice chairwoman of the local chapter of the environmentally minded Surfrider Foundation and a partner in Follywaves.com and remains the go-to photographer for all things surfing on Folly Beach.

Being humble and shy, Hussey is quick to stress that many other people and businesses come together to make the surfing community tick.

"Everybody helps so much," she says, reeling off a dozen names. "... With the ESA, it's an 'us' thing."

Friend Bubber Hutto says Hussey is so-behind-the-scenes that many people don't know that her reach in helping the community goes beyond surfing. It goes from keeping kids out of trouble to helping the city of Folly Beach solve problems. In 2008, Folly named her Citizen of the Year.

Hussey has an immense network of contacts that she calls the "coconut grapevine."

Life's loves

Ultimately, the 52-year-old's love of surfing represents the dovetailing of three greater loves: first and foremost, her family, then photography and Folly Beach.

In her few words and multitude of photographs, her adoration for her family, both biological and "blended," is evident.

"I've been a mom since I was 19, and I've been very, very lucky to have spent a lot of time with my kids," Hussey says with a sense of gratitude. "When they were young and we had all five of them together, we had a lot of fun. They are great, wonderful kids. We laugh a lot. They are very supportive of each other, too."

Her daughter, 30-year-old Sarah Mitchell, calls her mother the "queen bee of the family."

"She keeps everyone connected and spreads lots and lots of love," says Mitchell, who is an avid surfer. "I think all of my brothers would agree that we scored big time in the mom department. I would choose her a million times over to be my mother."

Facebook friends of Hussey's are beneficiaries of her passion and skill for photography. And while capturing special moments in life is an obvious motive, her shyness plays a role, as well.

"It (photography) has brought me out of my shell. It's a way for me to be involved in the community and the world," says Hussey, noting famed surfing photographer Aaron Chang shared the same experience with her on a visit to Folly Beach two years ago.

Regardless, being behind the camera has not made it any easier to be in front of the camera.

"I hate to be one of those weirdos who doesn't like to be photographed, but I am," she says.

Conducive to her habits as a shutterbug is the colorful life on Folly Beach, where she not only photographs sunrises, waves and surfers, but characters such as a woman walking a goat with painted horns down the street.

"Everywhere you look, there's a picture," she says, chuckling.

Child of the Lowcountry

Hussey is a true Lowcountry girl, hailing from one of the first families of the historic village of McClellanville, the Warrens. Her grandparents lived in Summerville, where she fondly recalls spending Christmases. She was born at St. Francis Hospital, lived in Mount Pleasant, on Sullivan's Island and in West Ashley, graduated from the former St. Andrew's High School a year early and enrolled at the College of Charleston.

During her junior year, she married Curtis Mitchell and had her first child, Curtis Mitchell Jr. The Mitchells owned a beachwear clothing store, Rainbow's End, with locations in Mount Pleasant and downtown Charleston. They had another child, Sarah Mitchell, before the marriage ended. With life sweeping her up, Nancy never managed to finish college.

About a year after separating from Mitchell, Nancy met Charlie Hussey at a surfing spot on Sullivan's Island known as Bert's (after the former, famed Bert's Bar) in the summer of 1984, but he wasn't surfing.

"He was reading. He carried my beach chair to the car, and that was pretty much it," recalls Hussey, again chuckling at the memory.

Blending families

Charlie Hussey, who now manages the Maybank Tennis Center, is an adventurous guy who flew typhoon chasers from Guam, tested weapons systems, became a blood perfusionist and served as a pilot for skydivers. He brought two children to the marriage, Tim and Michael, and the couple would add a fifth to the mix with Charlie Hussey Jr., who is now 22. All but Michael shared a loved of surfing.

Nancy Hussey jokes, "They all get along great and look alike despite having three different moms."

Tim Hussey, a prominent local artist and her eldest stepchild, recalls meeting Nancy for the first time. She and her father were at the long-gone Movies at Mount Pleasant theater seeing "Nightmare on Elm Street." Tim, who is now 41, was 14 at the time.

"She had this wild, wavy, long blond hair. She was hip, young and beautiful, but super shy," says Tim. "It was always the biggest pleasure getting to mix our families. I loved Curtis and Sarah, her kids, from Day One. They were very young, so we grew up together. ... We are all close, as if there is blood there."

The blending even survived a move away from the Lowcountry, due largely to a promotion that Charlie got. Four weeks before Hurricane Hugo tore through Charleston in September 1989, the family moved to Maryland and would live there for a decade. While in Maryland, she worked as an autotransfusion technician, recycling patients' shed blood from operations with a cell-saver machine.

Even though they returned during summers, Nancy recalls "it was very, very hard for me to be away (from the Lowcountry)."

Nancy found solace in visiting a website, follysurfcam.com, run by Andy Lisicki and Jackie Peters. Besides soothing her homesickness, it helped her reconnect with people she had known from spending time at the beaches of Charleston.

Settling back in

When the Husseys moved back, Nancy started shooting photos and videos of surfing. In fact, she preferred video because digital cameras were too sluggish to shoot the fast-paced action of surfing. The only downfall: She didn't like editing video.

Working with Lisicki and Peters led her to working with the ESA. At the time, Angie Youngblood was the chief surf mom on Folly, and they bonded. Hussey described Youngblood, whose family also hailed from McClellanville, "as my mentor."

By the time Youngblood was ready to hand over the reins, Hussey was ready.

"I love it. I absolutely love it," says Hussey. "It's so fun to have young people to get excited about surfing. Very few will become a Kelly Slater, but that's not what it's about. ... I hope anyone who comes to a contest would see that it's a fun thing."

Her mother, Sally Brown Warren, says Hussey is an organizing force for a group of people not particularly known for being organized.

"She's definitely a multitasker," says Warren, who is divorced from Nancy's father, Duke, and still lives in McClellanville. "Nancy is always on the phone, and she's great on the computer. Her office usually looks like a bomb went off in it. It's stacked high with boxes."

Surfing to heal

Surfing evolved into something even more meaningful for Hussey and the Charleston surf community after they were introduced to Surfer's Healing, a surf camp for autistic children set up by Izzy Paskowitz of the famed Paskowitz surfing family.

After a mother whose child participated in one in Virginia Beach spoke at an ESA meeting, Hussey started working to have Folly host one.

"I was sold on it from the beginning, even though I didn't know anyone with a child with autism. It just seemed like something I was compelled to do," says Hussey.

After the first camp, Hussey understood part of the reason she likes the event.

"It makes you appreciate the health of your children. It's an eye-opener about all the things I take for granted every day. I can walk out to the beach anytime I want to, but these families don't come to the beach because it's just too hard. If they do, then people stare at them," says Hussey. "This one little day, they are all in the same fun boat. Someone can have a tantrum over here, and nobody's going to stare at them."

And later this month, more than 100 families will converge on Folly for one care-free day of surfing with some of the world's greatest surfers.

All because of Hussey and her ever-growing coconut grapevine.