Bob Couture, who passed suddenly Jan. 2, has left a legacy of laughing, caring and living life to its fullest for his students and co-workers at Fountain Hills High School where he worked as a teacher and substitute.

Couture started his teaching career in 1972 as an English/Drama teacher in Bay City, Mich., at the high school he graduated from.

Couture ended up taking a break from the teaching vocation to work as a yearbook representative for Jostens, but after he and his wife, Cindy, retired to Fountain Hills in 2004 Couture found his way back to “the job he was meant to do,” as Cindy puts it.

When talking about their time with Bob, it was hard to find a particular moment out of the many that summed up the man.

“I think with most people they have their moments,” English teacher Jamie Sunshine said. “But I think with Bob, it was always a moment. He wasn’t that person who you remember doing this or you remember doing that…you remember Bob, because Bob is a living memory. He embodied of everything positive and joyful. So everything he did could be someone’s little moment.”

Sometimes that little moment could be something as small as a tension breaker.

“He (Couture) could talk Duck,” Social Studies teacher Kate Pruett said. “He could talk like Donald Duck and Bob could launch into it at any time. Whenever things might have been getting a little too serious and he wanted to lighten the mood, he would throw out comment in Duck.”

Couture’s theater background gave him a quick wit that made any conversation with him a comedic verbal sparring session.

“(Bob) would come down to lunches,” Sunshine said. “We would always do that whole improv thing and just push each other. It didn’t even become a ‘hey, let’s do this thing,’ it didn’t matter who was around, what the conversation was, we would always push to see who could take it the furthest before the other one broke. You always had someone to battle wits with, with him.”

As a yearbook/video production/teacher, Couture taught his students skills that some would later use in their professional careers.

“The kids would put out videos once or twice a week, Pruett said. “And some of those special effects and stuff the kids did were phenomenal. I know some of those kids have gone on and moved to California in L.A.”

His fellow teachers think it was Couture’s genuine personality that appealed to his students so much.

“He (Couture) was one when you hear them (students) say ‘he cared,’” Sunshine said. “They like the ones that they feel care. Bob had passion about what he did, and he loved it.”

Couture’s enthusiasm and drive to see his students succeed led to him saying yes to the their biggest ambitions.

“(Couture) wanted us to have control of what we were doing in the year book,” former student and FHHS employee Sonya Bain said. “When I was co-editor my senior year we had all these huge ideas and he made them all happen. He let us run wild with all we wanted to do.”

Other moments Couture showed his support for his students by just showing up.

“(Couture) was always an easy person to talk to and always took such an interest into what you (I) were doing,” said former student Mark Almeida “I was in the band in high school and him and Mrs. Couture would never miss a concert or performance by us; they were the faces I could always count on seeing, for example.”

All of Couture’s kindness to his students inspired them to return the gesture in their own creative ways.

“We knew that both Mr. and Mrs. Couture worked on campus and oddly so that they were on exact opposite sides. Then, it hit my friend and I,” Almeida said. “What if we created a portal connecting both of their rooms? After receiving their permission, it took us quite a while, including some time over the summer to finish this project we had so heavily set our hearts on. My friend painted a ceiling tile that was placed directly over Mrs. Couture’s desk in her old room in the English building and I painted the back wall of what was then Mr. Couture’s class in the Tech building.”

The portals inspired by a video game that Almeida, his friend and Couture like also highlights another aspect of Couture that stood out to those around him: his love for his wife.

“You see the relationship that he and Cindy had,” Sunshine said. “You’ll hear people say it, but it truly was a storybook romance. You see what they were like as a couple, as parents and teachers and you can define a lot of things through their relationship.”

Even when Couture was forced to retire from fulltime teaching by doctor’s orders he still managed to find his way back to the school as a substitute. As a sub he could still make that trademark Couture impression in a more limited time frame.

“When I told my classes (about Bob’s passing), and I have three freshmen classes with kids who have never had him as a teacher, they were upset,” Pruett said. “They had enjoyed him when he came to sub for me.”