The Oldest State — Jason Paige Smith Photography | Massachusetts, Maine, Boston Commercial, Editorial and Advertising Photographer

Andy Gove, an 88-year-old lobsterman from Stonington, Maine. Still actively out setting traps, Gove got his first lobster license in 1937. Gove has been working in the same harbor since he was a boy and his vast knowledge of the water and the region has earned him accolades in search and rescue operations when the Coast Guard asks for his help.

Dr. Robert Bach, 81, of North Haven, started his career serving as a general surgeon in the Navy and then continued practicing as a general surgeon in New Hampshire, Boston and Maine for 35 years. Along the way, he’s also been a recreational lobsterman for 25 years, traveled numerous times to Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and St. Lucia on volunteer medical missions, earned a master’s degree in divinity and played hockey in Russia. Bach even once delivered a baby while still wearing shin guards from his hockey game at the rink next to the hospital.

The one and only Johnny Mac, photographed at Crusher Pool in The Forks, Maine. At the age of 65, this is Johnny’s 34th consecutive season as a river guide. Normally a job associated with younger people, Johnny doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. “I always said I’d do this until I wasn’t having fun anymore.” He sure seems like he’s still having a good time on the river.

George Dunn, 85, has had a lifelong passion for flying. He first got his license in 1952 and now shares that passion with seven other members of his family who fly and own planes, including his son who now flies KC-135s for the Air National Guard in Bangor. He and his family, known as “The Flying Dunn’s,” have been part of the Beech Hill Pond community for several years—Dunn has lived on the pond, year round, for more than 45 years and hosts an annual Fourth of July event at his hanger that draws more than 1,000 people each year.

Fred Cookson, 76, of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine was raised just a few miles from where his home and farm of more than 200 acres now sit, and he has lived a life committed to hard work on the farm and in the classroom. He taught high school math and scien

Ann Bradford, 82, has been hiking to the summit of each of Acadia National Park’s 28 peaks every summer since she was 75. Her love for this park and Mount Desert Island is profound and inspirational.

Donna Loring, 70, of Bradley, Maine, is an author, broadcaster and tribal elder of the Penobscot Nation. Loring earned a degree in Arts in Political Science from the University of Maine and also graduated from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. She became the police chief for the Penobscot Nation and was the first female graduate of the Academy to become a police chief. Loring served in Vietnam, stationed fifty miles north of Saigon and was commissioned to the honorary Colonel rank by Former Maine Governor Angus King and appointed Aide de Camp, advising King on women’s veteran’s affairs. Loring has served several terms on behalf of the Penobscots in the state legislature and is responsible for the required teaching of Maine’s Native American History and in 2017 Loring received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Maine. She currently serves as the Senior Advisor on Tribal Affaires for Governor Janet Mills.

Everard Hall, 72, of Milbridge, Maine. Hall has been digging graves by hand for more than 50 years, and has buried more than 2,400 souls during his work as a gravedigger, including many family members and friends.

Detective Steven Edmondson, 63, of Topsham, Maine. At a time when Maine is struggling to find young people who want to become police officers, Edmondson continues to work as a full time law enforcement officer, something he’s done in Maine now for 42 years. “I have remained in law enforcement for so long because I truly believe it has been a calling for me,” he said. “Although the subject matter of my current position is highly objectionable, I do take pleasure in assisting victims of abuse and seeing offenders held accountable.” Edmondson has been in Maine since he was 8, and has ancestral roots that go back 300 years in the Midcoast area of Maine.

Avid outdoorsman, Bob Lombardo, 69, photographed in Orono, Maine. Bob spends much of his time on trails, either out working on target practice shooting rotten tree stumps with the arrows he makes or on one of his many bikes.

Gillian Rose, 88, of Orono, Maine. Rose estimates she’s logged approximately 1K miles on her bike so far this year. In the colder months of the year she stays busy on cross country ski trails. “You do as much as you can for as long as you can,” Rose said.

Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering Technology, Herb Crosby, 71, of Orono, Maine. Crosby taught a variety of courses in Machine Design, Thermal Science, and Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning over his 35-year career with the University of Maine. Photographed here at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum in Bradley, Maine, he has used his skills to become one of the few people in the world today who can say they know how to restore, repair and operate a Lombard steam log hauler. Crosby and his students started restoring the C. 1910 Lombard in 2002 and completed the first successful steam run in 2014. Crosby has helped lead the way with more than 200 volunteers participating in the restoration over the course of 30 years. Eighty of those have been University of Maine students. Because these machines are no longer in use, many of the parts that were needed had to be designed, built and replaced by Crosby and his students. If you point any small piece of the tread, Crosby can tell you a story about it. An incredible feat of ingenuity for the time, the Lombard, a Maine invention, changed the way logs were moved through the forest, helping revolutionize the logging industry.

Eugene Walsh, 102, of Newcastle, Maine has lived a life of service to his country through the United States Coast Guard. Starting out in New Orleans, Walsh was part of the first enlisted ranks to be sent up to the four-month Officer Candidate School. Of the 39 sent, he was one of only 16 who graduated. He served in the Mediterranean, Guam, Kodiak, Alaska, Miami, Seattle, New York, Okinawa, and an area nicknamed Torpedo Junction to just name a few of the places his career of 37 years took him. Walsh served on all three fronts of World War II and finished his career as Chief of Staff of the 9th District. Smiling, he recalled a story from when he was helping transport people back from the Pacific after WWII. They brought back a group of more than 50 people, but when they arrived in San Diego there was no transportation to be found. After a chance conversation with a clerk at a jewelry store, who knew someone in charge of food service for the Santa Fe Railway, who knew someone in charge of the Santa Fe Chief, a passenger train that ran from California to Chicago, they were given their own car on the train for all the passengers. “They added an extra car to the train just for us and fed us all the way to Chicago,” Walsh said. “That was just incredible.”

Ed Hendrickson, 98, of Brewer, Maine, still plans to do some downhill skiing once the snow starts to fly; in 2003 Hendrickson was the recipient of Sugarloaf’s Paul Schipper’s Iron Man Award. While he's been an avid skier most of his life and the dean of students at Northern Maine Vocational Technical Institute for 17 years, he was also a naval dive-bomber in WWII. Ed flew (and on a couple occasions) had to crash-land planes he was flying. In combat Hendrickson flew SB2C Helldivers. Over the span of just a few days, he shot down one enemy plane only to be hit by enemy fire a couple days later, losing his landing gear on one side, and crash-landing on an aircraft carrier--just the 14th aircraft carrier ever built, according to Hendrickson. "After they took the gun camera off the plane, they just pushed it overboard," he said. "That's just how they did things." On a previous occasion he wasn't able to land on the carrier and ended up careening off into a lake, where he narrowly escaped being dragged 130 feet to the bottom with his plane. That particular plane, a Douglass SBD Dauntless, was brought back to the surface in the 1990s and now can be seen on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.

Detective Steven Edmondson, 63, of Topsham, Maine. At a time when Maine is struggling to find young people who want to become police officers, Edmondson continues to work as a full time law enforcement officer, something he’s done in Maine now for 42 years. Starting out at the Topsham Police Department, where he worked for 26 years, and has spent the last 16 years of his career serving as the Domestic Violence Investigator for the Sagadahoc County District Attorney’s Office. “I have remained in law enforcement for so long because I truly believe it has been a calling for me,” he said. “Although the subject matter of my current position is highly objectionable, I do take pleasure in assisting victims of abuse and seeing offenders held accountable.” Edmondson has been in Maine since he was 8, and has ancestral roots that go back 300 years in the Midcoast area of Maine.

Robin Emery, 72, of Lamoine, Maine has been running races for more than 50 years and logged enough miles to circumnavigate the globe one and a half times. Participating in approximately 30 races a year and running every day, she has pushed through physical adversity, such as once suffering a frozen eyeball due to weather conditions (she now runs with ski goggles in colder temps), and also broken through societal norms. When Robin signed up to run her first race in 1972, she was the first woman to ever enter the race. “Women weren’t supposed to sweat or be competitive then,” she said. “It wasn’t feminine.” After entering the race and completing it three years in a row, she was finally given recognition: a basketball trophy, with a man on top. Robin, who also was an elementary school teacher for more than 50 years, has a long-standing legacy in Maine. She was the second woman to ever be inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame.

George Dunn and his wife Donna have been together 63 years and living on the pond for more than 45 of those years. George Dunn, 85, has had a lifelong passion for flying. He first got his license in 1952 and now shares that passion with seven other members of his family who fly and own planes, including his son who now flies KC-135s for the Air National Guard in Bangor. He and his family, known as “The Flying Dunn’s,” have been part of the Beech Hill Pond community for several years—Dunn has lived on the pond, year round, for more than 45 years and hosts an annual Fourth of July event at his hanger that draws more than 1,000 people each year.

Third generation miner Frank C. Perham, 84, in West Paris, Maine. The family tradition all started when his grandfather’s cows, moving from one area of a field to another, helped unearth a large feldspar deposit. From there, his grandfather helped get the feldspar mill going in 1926 and his father, Stanley, started a mineral store in 1919. Frank worked with his father when he was growing up and, like his father, earned a geology degree from Bates College. In the 1950s Frank also served a tour in Korea and became very skilled with explosives. Being good at placing explosives gave him work with the state of Maine for road construction projects, but also gave him the opportunity to mine on weekends. The pockets he’s found over the years and discoveries he has made now sit on display at both The Smithsonian and as close as the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel, Maine. Frank has given many lectures over the years and also has created a display of many of his finds in the basement of his home, where people stop in to hear his many stories and learn about Maine’s minerals from someone with an unbridled passion for minerals and lifetime of experiences.

Beth Hutchings, 81, owner of Hutchings Greenhouse, in Eddington, Maine, is originally from Ireland, but has made Maine her home for 62 years. When Beth was younger she visited with her cousins in Belfast, Ireland, and sometimes visited the docks in Belfast (the same docks where the Titanic was built). Her uncle, who served in the Royal Navy, had an interest in ships; one weekend they took a tour of a docked American destroyer. The tour was a success. The person who gave Beth and her family the tour was from Maine, and would be her future husband, Le Roy. He visited Beth’s family for tea many times over his stay in Belfast and Le Roy and Beth wrote letters for a year to stay in touch before he asked her to marry him. Taking a ship from Liverpool to New York, Beth moved to Maine in 1957. She said moving here took some adjusting, especially in the winter, but she has done some incredible things with her time in Maine. She and Le Roy, a gardener, started a business that now includes 9 greenhouses, all heated through the winter with wood and geothermal heating. To keep the greenhouses warm, Beth is regularly moving and burning wood in the very early hours of the morning. She and her crew burn through 24 cords of wood in their 11 wood stoves.

Natalie Terry, 95, of Waterville is gearing up for her 51st consecutive year of teaching skiing lessons at Sugarloaf Ski Resort, starting her career in 1970. Last year the resort had to create a commemorative pin she wears with pride for her 50th season. They had to create the pin for her because it didn’t exist—no one has ever reached this milestone at Sugarloaf. Terry, who is a Level III Certified Instructor with the Professional Ski Instructors of America, has been recognized by SKI Magazine as one of the “Top 100 Most Effective Ski Teachers in North America” and was inducted into the Maine Ski Hall of Fame. She is the recipient of a prestigious award given by the Professional Skiing Instructors of America for Life Membership of Outstanding Service to the Education of Snowsports and has received the highest number of requested private and group lessons of any staff member—she has been known to teach 7 days a week throughout the season. In fact, there is an award given each year, called the Natalie Terry Award, to the second most requested instructor. “I’m safer and happier on skis than I am walking,” she joked.

Fred Cookson, 76, of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine was raised just a few miles from where his home and farm of more than 200 acres now sit, and he has lived a life committed to hard work on the farm and in the classroom. He taught high school math and science for the better part of 27 years, but has always maintained strong ties to the land he’s worked since he was just a child. Cookson said his family didn’t have a lot of money, but they had a strong work ethic. His father gave him 100 acres of land to pay for college. Cookson used that land, harvesting pulp wood, to pay his tuition, earning a bachelor’s in science and a master’s in plant pathology from the University of Maine. Additionally, Cookson joined the Peace Corps, working for two years in Niger in West Africa and then one more year back in the U.S. as a recruiter. Cookson raises beef, but also works four nights a week with those who have suffered brain injuries—a job he’s done for 11 years. Cookson himself has suffered hardships on the farm. In 2013, the family’s entire barn and 100-year old home were completely destroyed in a fire. Cookson decided to stay and rebuild again, albeit on a slightly different part of the land. “There were two important things my father taught me: always work hard and have fun doing it,” he said. “I think the worst thing you could do to me would be to just sit me on a beach somewhere with a beer.”

Harley Watts, 73, of Glenburn, Maine has been interested in trains from a young age. With his father working for the Santa Fe Railroad in Iowa, Watts and his brother spent many hours at the train station with their dad, hoping to spot the smoke of the steam engines as they arrived. His fascination with trains and even his perspective of those trains from when he was younger became a hobby he still enjoys today. After joining the Peace Corps in the 1960s to assist agriculture in India for a couple years, Watts then joined the Army before moving to Maine. The layouts, which fill his basement, are built so that you can walk through them at eye level. This perspective is reminiscent of how he saw trains as a kid, and allows others to share that perspective. His collection, including roughly 800 feet of track, 20 diesel engines, 10 steam engines and at least 240 cars snakes through the various towns he’s created—with Watts’ sense of humor sprinkled throughout the designs as visual jokes. If you know Harley Watts well, there’s a good chance something in one of his towns will bare your name. Watts has visited 16 countries, earned a degree in Political Science from the University of Maine, retired from a 20-year career with GE, been married for nearly 50 years and shares his passions with four children and six grandchildren.

Arthur Hatch, 86, of West Paris, Maine, was looking for something to do with his family in 1980 when he learned of a truck competition at the local fairgrounds and thought it sounded interesting. Hatch had a daughter and three sons. Two of his sons suffered from muscular dystrophy. When he asked about entering, he was told by those running the competition that he shouldn’t enter—the other trucks would be more powerful and he’d have no way to compete, they said. Arthur drove his 1972 Ford F350 plow/work truck down anyway, and took first place. He never looked back, and he’s been using the same truck (albeit with a few modifications along the way) for more than 30 years. Hatch’s truck, Maybe Baby, has done it all: sand hill climbs, uphill mud runs, mud bogging and pulling. “I think I’ve done everything foolish you can do with it,” he joked. Hatch lost one of his sons to MD when he was in his teens, but continues to work closely with his two surviving sons, doing mechanical work and going to competitions all around New England. Currently running a 460 engine in his truck, he has averaged roughly 10-15 competitions a year for the last 33 years, and is regularly introduced at the competitions as the oldest person still pulling.

Detective Steven Edmondson, 63, of Topsham, Maine. At a time when Maine is struggling to find young people who want to become police officers, Edmondson continues to work as a full time law enforcement officer, something he’s done in Maine now for 42 years. Starting out at the Topsham Police Department, where he worked for 26 years, and has spent the last 16 years of his career serving as the Domestic Violence Investigator for the Sagadahoc County District Attorney’s Office. “I have remained in law enforcement for so long because I truly believe it has been a calling for me,” he said. “Although the subject matter of my current position is highly objectionable, I do take pleasure in assisting victims of abuse and seeing offenders held accountable.” Edmondson has been in Maine since he was 8, and has ancestral roots that go back 300 years in the Midcoast area of Maine.

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