For Dr. Richard Fox, service has never been a job. It’s simply been a way of life.

Carrie Jones

Jul 24, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Thrive Juice Bar & Kitchen.

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BAR HARBOR—For most people sticking with something for 25 years seems a gargantuan task.

But Dr. Richard “Dick” Fox is not most people.

This week, the Town Council honored Fox for serving on the volunteer board of the Bar Harbor Housing Authority for 25 years.

“Dr. Fox served with three Housing Authority executive directors, Terrance J. Kelley, H. Duane Bartlett, and Weston T. Brehm; he helped steward the BHHA through four Presidential administrations and six secretaries of the Department of Housing and Urban Development,” the Town Council’s July 21 order reads.

That, however, is just one of the many ways the tall man, lover of cars, his wife Barbara, and stories has served the town and Mount Desert Island.

“Dick’s service to the Housing Authority adds to an already remarkable record of accomplishment and service as a scientist, a former member of the Town Council, and an anchor of the MDI (Bar Harbor) Rotary Club, showing up to work at the annual Seafood Festival as a nonagenarian to along with scores of family members he recruited to lend a hand,” the order, read by Town Clerk Liz Graves continues.

Dr. Fox was a senior staff scientist at the Jackson Laboratory.

Lisa Horsch Clark, who has been in Rotary with the Foxes for many years, said, “Dick is a force to be reckoned with, bringing the energy, drive, and work ethic of someone half his age to every cause he supports. His decades of service to the Seal Cove Auto Museum, Rotary, and countless other community organizations have enriched our lives, and we are fortunate that he calls this community home.”

Back in 2012, in an advertisement for Bar Harbor Savings and Loan (where he served on the Board of Directors for 37 years), Dr. Fox said, “The bank’s philosophy is ‘We’ll work with you.’”

That’s pretty much been Dr. Fox’s philosophy, too. When the nonagenarian drove for Island Connections, helping people get to doctor’s appointments and the grocery store; when he drove around part-time for the police department; when he and Barbara took family and friends on jaunts in their 1928 Studebaker, Dr. Fox always personified working with people.

He’s picked up trash, stuffed backpacks with needed food, done science with the best of them, headed to New Guinea, was part of the committee that started MDI High School, raised money for countless organizations, planned, served, and bargained, spent Thanksgiving cooking dinners for people in Portland, and raised a family that believed in service and action just as much as he did.

Happy to share a story, a joke, or the grill at Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club’s Fourth of July Pancake breakfast, Dr. Fox made the event about community, about others, and about how he believed a community should be: connected, working together.

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