MDI couple celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary today.

Carrie Jones

Jan 22, 2026

NORTHEAST HARBOR—Sometimes the best news isn’t the hard news. It’s the quiet stories of triumph and long-lasting love and lives that make huge impacts in not just a couple’s family, but in an entire community.

Cliff and Kathy Olson have a story like that, and today, it’s their wedding anniversary where they will celebrate sixty years of marriage.

Cliff was a guidance counselor at Mount Desert Island High School for thirty years. Kathy was a nurse at MDI Hospital for forty years.

For many, working for decades in those professions would be enough of a help to a community since both those professions involve helping, caretaking, listening, guiding, and supporting.

The Olsons didn’t stop there, though.

Their life and their marriage is like that, too. And they’ve constantly given back to the community via volunteer work.

They’ve cleaned up trash, created posts for signs in Acadia National Park, worked on trails, nursed wounds, listened to woes, raised a family, played frisbee with dogs, had adventures with friends, and quietly, patiently supported hundreds of students, patients, and friends on Mount Desert Island. They’ve volunteered at Island Connections and the Northeast Harbor Library. Kathy placed in a cross-country ski race back in 1994 and helped with numerous fund drives, including for the Mount Desert Nursing Association.

The Hancock County Medical Mission? They’ve helped there.

The Wild Gardens of Acadia at the Land and Garden Preserve? They’ve helped there, too.

“As a team they have given untold hours to the maintainance and establishment of the Northeast Harbor VIA trails. They have volunteered for Island Connections and delivered meals to elderly. These are just a few of their areas of dedication,” said their friend Roberta Sharp. “We have many fond memories of skiing with our families in the Laurentians, hiking Katahdin, the 100-Mile Wilderness, and the huts in the White Mountains.”

As they celebrate 60 years of marriage, Cliff and Kathy Olson are the kind of adventuring couple that seem less interested in milestones than in moments: showing up, pitching in, and being there when someone needs help. Their story isn’t marked by grand gestures so much as steady ones, the kind that build trust over decades and quietly knit a community together in stronger, more loving ways.

In a place like Mount Desert Island, where neighbors become family and service becomes a way of life, that kind of devotion matters. Cliff and Kathy’s legacy lives not just in years shared, but in lives touched. Their love and their anniversary is a beautiful proof that lasting love, like lasting community, is built day by day.

---

If you’d like to wish the Olsons a happy anniversary, you can do so on this story or on our Facebook post, here. Mike will make sure they see it.