It's hard to believe a kid who grew up on a small dairy farm, 2 miles east of Hutchinson, eventually was known as the “Dean of Minnesota Wildlife Artists.” It's quite a story I have to tell.

This rooster was hatched during a big snow storm. I arrived on Feb. 3, 1917, during a whale of blizzard at Hutchinson. My parents — Anthony and Sophie Kouba, were first-generation Americans. Their parents had emigrated to this country from Prague, Czechoslovakia.

I was the middle child with a brother on each side of me. Those were the days when a farmer had a handful of chickens, a patch of dirt for a vegetable garden, a few pigs and a dozen milk cows. You tried to scratch out a living any way you could. My mother's father had 120 colonies of bees, and as you well know, that's a pretty sweet business selling that honey stuff.

My dad contributed to my early appreciation of nature. He taught me a lot of the little tricks I huntng, trapping and later, fishing. He instilled in me at an early age, the sheer enjoyment of being outdoors. Back when I was a kid, it was really something to go hunting. Those were the days when the ducks and geese were so plentiful that the sky turned black when flocks passed overhead. These experiences were so exciting to me that I started to portray these happenings on bits of paper that I always carried with me. Consequently, I drew my impressions of birds, game animals, big game and fish — everything across the board. Because I actually hunted, I developed an early understanding of all the background skills necessary to be successful at my future career as a wildlife artist.

With all the hard work on the farm, it didn't take me long to know it wasn't for me. I knew I could draw when I was about 8 years old. I think I made up my mind about then that I wanted to be an artist when I gew up. I was convinced I was on the right track when I sold my first painting — a deer at the water's edge — when I was 11 to a prosperous German farmer who lived near Hutchinson. `

I got $11 for it, a king's ransom in those days. It doesn't seem like much by today's standards but keep in mind this was 1928, when a dime was as big as a wagon wheel. To put it in perspective, my dad's total income for his dairy business was $22 that month.

My only art training came in the form of enrolling in the Federal Schools. Some of you may remember those ads in the back of magazines that encouraged the reader to “Draw Me.” This was a correspondence course. I would complete my lessons and send them in to be evaluated. My favorite teacher was Walter Wilwerding, a well-known illustrator. He was doing exactly what I wanted to do — he was painting sporting scenes for the leading magazines of the day. As a kid, I remember religiously visiting the newsstand at the corner drugstore where I pored over the covers and illustrations in those magazines for sportsmen.

Back then, there wasn't any television, internet or mobile phone. The illustrator was in great demand because he or she could bring the story alive with good art. It inspired me.

Things took a turn for me when I was 16, I was expelled from school for smoking a cigarette during manual training class. Looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Imagine. I was just 16 years old when I packed my bag and set off down the road to see the world. I had a small suitcase where I carried a few clothes, ut it was mostly filled with my paints and brushes. I supported myself by doing commercial painting.

I hit a gold mine when I started painting Coca-Cola signs. I didn't work for the company, but the individual bottlers throughout the country. The local sign painters could handle the lettering, but I had a knack for adding the difference that actually sold the product. I was one of the few sign writers of the day would could paint figures and pictorials.

One of my claims to fame happened in Tifton, Georgia, in 1932. I made history by polishing up the Coca-Cola logo. It was a hit, so much so the company's ad department came out and took pictures of my sign. The higher-ups decided to incorporate the new look and bought the rights to the new logo design and gave me a sizable check for my efforts.

He returned to Hutchinson about 1936 where I took just about any job that came my way. One of my most interesting was the creation of a statue to honor Sioux Indian Chief Little Crow. In 1937, the city of Hutchinson purchased the land at the dam site of the Crow River and turned it into a park The park board wanted to add a statue of Little Crow. 

I made the statue of molded concrete over a metal frame, with a copper-plate finish. You can see it at the McLeod County History Museum. We replaced it in 1982 with the bronze statue you see before you. 

It was just after World War II that my wife, Orial and I moved to Minneapolis, and I opened my own commercial art studio. Among my early clients were Red Owl, Schmidt Beer and Old Dutch. You're probably familiar with some of those logos — I created that owl and the windmill. I also painted plenty of wildlife pictures for beer cans. 

I got my big break into wildlife art when I started to exhibit some of my early images in Zesbaugh's Picture store on Eighth Street in downtown Minneapolis. 

Clare Fry, art director at Brown & Bigelow, the national calendar company, saw my work and made an appointment with me. I did a trial painting titled Daybreak on the Marshes. Fry offered me $600 for the painting. That was a lot of money back then. That sale launched my career as a wildlife artist. I painted plenty of pictures for calendars as well as the cover art for sporting magazines such as Sports Field and private commissions for my hunting buddies. 

Since those days, I've painted a lot of ducks and geese. I think my work has stood the test of time because I painted the outdoors like it really was. I knew because I had walked those fields and hunted in those duck blinds. 

This is probably a good time to mention "Kouba's 13." A friend pointed out to me that I always had 13 of something in my paintings. I hadn't noticed, but from then on, I made sure to include them. 

My work has appeared on three federal duck stamps as well as many state stamps and for special Ducks Unlimited commemorative prints.

In case you're wondering why I'm called the "Dean of Minnesota's Wildlife Artists," it's because of a painting I did called "Headin' for Shelter." It showed pheasants in a snowy farm scene. I hit the nail on the head with that one. It became a hot collector's item. I think I originally sold prints for $40 at the Hutchinson Arts and Crafts Fair. It sold out and started a meteoric climb on the secondary market. People were selling them for as much as $2,500. I wasn't making any money on those, so I decided to create a series — Headin' For Shelter, In Shelter and Leavin' Shelter. It was a big hit and fueled the wildlife art scene and secondary market. I was the first. 

Those were the days. It's fine to do all these things, but what about the future? I wanted to leave a legacy for young artists who followed after me. To do that, I donated many of my belongings to what became the Les Kouba Gallery at the McLeod County History Museum. I can barely get over the idea that I'm a museum — a farm kid from Hutchinson. 

It goes to show that anything is possible. Before I go, I want to share with you the secret of my success. When I boil it all down, I'm a self-made man who is 52% businessman and 48% artist. I've made my way in this world following 3 principles:

1. First, pick the thing you like to do best

2. Then learn everything you can about it

3. and finally be willing to work harder than anyone else in that field.

That's my secret to success: Hard work. It's that simple

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