Sonny Koutsoutis, seated second from left, with her friends on her birthday. PAULETTE LeBLANC
Sonny Koutsoutis is a very involved Pine Islander. She said she would describe herself as someone who was given the purpose to help people. Currently living under the care of Hospice, Koutsoutis finds herself unable to offer the help and kindness she would normally extend, which she admits is overwhelming.
“My parents moved here in ’76. I’d been down for Christmas with my husband and before we left, I knew when the time is right I was gonna live on this island,” Koutsoutis said.
Koutsoutis admits that her husband would not have enjoyed living on Pine Island the way she suspected she would. After her husband died in 1999, Koutsoutis said she began visiting Pine Island. A friend of hers already lived here and asked Koutsoutis if she would mind staying with her after a knee-replacement. Koutsoutis agreed and found herself picking up mail for her friend from the American Legion Auxiliary, the Lyons Club and the Calusa Land Trust. Staying on the island with her friend soon led her to a Realtor’s office where she asked if anything might be available on the water.
“She showed me print-outs and when we came the next day to look at this house, I walked in the front door and said, ‘I’m home,’” Koutsoutis said.
Her love for the island, she said, becomes obvious when she recalls how desperately she’d wanted to be a part of the Fellow Islanders Sending Help (F.I.S.H) organization. Having gone through many roles with the organization, such as administrative duties as well as a span on the board of directors, Koutsoutis said, brought much joy to her island life.
“The process is, someone interviews the client, gathers all the information, then goes to two other members of the committee to get their approval and I’m on that second committee,” Koutsoutis said.
She has also served time on the Greater Pine Island Water Association board.
“I ran and I won. I was on for two terms,” Koutsoutis said, adding that at the time, she’d been the only woman on the board.
In the last year Koutsoutis was GPIWA board president, she said, they hired a female general manager. Her love for Pine Island and the issues presented here have caused many days concern over things such as being taken over by developers, she recalls.
“When I moved here, Walgreens was trying to take over the 4-way corner. All the Pine islanders would go into Fort Myers and Phil Buchanan would usually tell us what color shirt to wear that day. The (county) commissioners would look out on the audience and everybody from Pine Island was in yellow, if that was the color that day. We managed to stop that. I’m very much against development on this island if it’s not needed,” Koutsoutis said.
If describing Pine Island to someone who has not heard of this place, she said she would likely say it is Old Florida, where people work together and respect each other, achieving a very comfortable and calm feeling. When considering a dynamic wish for Pine Island, she admits she’d like the island to stay true to itself as much as possible.
“You’ve got developers pushing to get in and after the storm, a lot of people converted the houses that were destroyed into larger residences and now they’re renting them out, as if it’s a giant play area and it shouldn’t be that. It should be the wonderful, I love you island, it’s always been,” Koutsoutis said.
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