High school sweethearts and Holy Trinity alums Nick and Avery Salupe are charting an interesting path as a married couple.
Nick and Avery both grew up in Melbourne, Florida. Nick grew up by the beach in Indialantic, while Avery grew up with horses. They both started their Holy Trinity journey in the beginning of Pre-K and made it all the way to senior year together. “As kids, we kind of dated on and off from about sixth to ninth grade, but then went our own ways, until we eventually ended up back together at the end of high school,” Avery said.
During their time at Holy Trinity, they were both on different wavelengths. Avery was showing horses all of high school while Nick was really just focused on surfing with friends and fishing at the beach. “He still surfs a lot!” exclaimed Avery. Besides surfing and fishing, Nick was also on the Holy Trinity swim team from junior high to the end of high school. During their senior year, they both enrolled in Mr.Hale’s film class. “I loved film, it was just kind of a relaxing class, where we could learn but still have fun and Mr.Hale always kept it entertaining,” Avery said. After 12 years at Holy Trinity, in the spring of 2010, they both graduated.
“I actually got my pilot’s license after graduating from Holy Trinity and even though I don’t fly anymore, it was still such an enjoyable experience for me,” Avery said.
Avery always grew up around horses. “My mom grew up riding, and my grandfather owned horses so from a very young age he got my sisters and I into riding,” Avery said. As you can tell, Avery most definitely stuck with it. After graduating, she then went on to attend Florida Gulf Coast. While there, in addition to her studies, she worked on a farm in Arcadia. Once she graduated college, she moved home with Nick and she decided to start their life on the farm.
“It’s been a part of my life and now Nick’s life for a long time,” Avery said.
After graduating from HT, Nick enrolled at Brevard Community College (BCC) now known as Eastern Florida State. “I just wanted to stay local and be around the ocean all the time,” Nick said. While at BCC he met a buddy who told him about fish farming and at that time he was working in the hospital while still taking classes at BCC. “I didn’t know at first that fish farming existed, and it sort of just perked my ears,” Nick said. After hearing more about this opportunity, he went down to Indian River State College to continue his studies in aquaculture. Once enrolled in IRSC, he attended an aquaculture program which is a harbor branch oceanographic institute. “Once completing that program, I was turned onto clam farming from one of my mentors,” Nick said.
Clam farming is very unique in a sense that it’s the most regular dirt farming agriculture. The process starts with buying clams the size of your pinky nail and leasing land from the state to plant your clams in. After a year of being protected from predators under a net, you should hopefully be able to harvest market-sized clams. “It’s just like dirt farming,” Nick said. Back in 2012, his late friend Terry came down to IRS and gave a lecture that resonated with Nick. At the end of that lecture, he asked if anyone wanted to go down to Sebastian with him to do some farming, and from that, Nick knew he had to go. During this time, Nick became really close with Terry and considered him one of his best friends. Later, he was able to lease some land to start farming on.
“I am actually one of four guys still farming on the East Coast,” Nick said.
They spent 10 years living together on a farm and owning 15-16 horses, dogs, goats, and chickens. This past April, Avery had a terrible accident that would change their lives forever. During one of her last lessons of the day, she was leading a horse and that horse ended up rearing her and landing right on the side of her head. When she hit the ground, she shattered her C-7 vertebrae and was airlifted to Holmes Regional Medical Center for emergency surgery. This injury left Avery out of commission for a long time. “This injury caused me to quit training and now I’ve moved on to professional judging and teaching lessons,” Avery said.
“It’s kind of like flipping sides, like I’m still in it, but just in a less hazardous way now,” Avery said.
After experiencing such a devastating accident that left her rethinking everything, she has now started doing life a different way. Before her accident, she was traveling almost every other week to show horses, but now she stays home with her chickens and goats and enjoys professionally judging horseback riding shows. “That accident was a big life change,” Nick said.
After being together for so long, they have grown to love the little things in life like their farm and animals. After being in the rurals for so long neither of the Salupes could see themselves living in the city. Nick still loves going to the beach and has now received his captain’s license. “I would love to make it to SpaceX and get on some of those boats sometime,” he said.
“We are happy, and loving living on the farm,” Avery said.
