Environmentalists, astronomers and budding scientists throughout Eastern North Carolina can be thankful for that. Together, the two have become crusaders for an area of education often overlooked in classrooms -- the wonders of applied science.

A more traditional retirement might keep them from hauling a portable planetarium to schools. It wouldn't allow them to get involved in a science center that will offer simulated space shuttle missions. And they wouldn't spend their own money to buy undeveloped land so researchers, classroom teachers and community groups can be guaranteed a place to study nature.

"We really like our front porch," Nancy says of the perch that overlooks a small lake and a stand of cypress and hardwoods. "We just don't spend much time there."

Although those who work with the couple praise their passion for science and education, the Brays don't necessarily see it that way.

Their embrace of education is obvious, from the warehouse full of "science stuff" they have collected over the years to the almost giggling delight that creeps into Nancy's descriptions of classroom experiments. But they say their current pursuits are just another chapter in an unfolding story.

It's a plotline that meanders through several states and multiple jobs before it winds its way to a point where Hurricane Floyd, one of the deadliest storms in North Carolina history, presents the couple with the chance of a lifetime.

Through those years, a recurring thread keeps their story intact.

"We've never been very good at just sitting still," John says.

Turn to oceanography

John's decision to become an oceanographer followed a summer job in 1966, just before his senior year in college. Among other things, the job included a fair amount of time analyzing the chemical makeup of household products, such as oven cleaner and the stuff that unclogs pipes.

"It wasn't very satisfying," he says. "I felt I could do better with a chemistry degree."

But he wasn't sure what he wanted to do until he picked up "The Sea Around Us" by Rachel Carson. Although he'd never been on the sea, it wasn't long before the couple took off for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where John could earn a doctorate in oceanography.

While Nancy always suspected she was a scientist at heart, she found herself teaching French to kids who struggled with English. She vowed to eventually earn her master's degree in reading so her students could understand the world around them.

By the early 1970s, John was closing in on his doctorate in geochemistry and chemical oceanography. A career on the water was within reach.

"But it was during that time I learned I could not be a blue-water oceanographer," he says. "It was six weeks from Australia to Antarctica. I was violently seasick for three weeks, mildly seasick for the rest."

His grounding turned into North Carolina's gain when his chemical understanding of trace elements landed him a job at East Carolina University in 1978.

John's job in the department of surgery seemed an odd place for an oceanographer, but he made the best of it.

In the field of medicine, researchers were beginning to better understand why traces of some elements promoted healing while others proved toxic. It was something John understood.

But at ECU -- just a short distance from the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds -- others wanted to know about chemical concentrations in fish. He understood that, too.

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