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Julia Hawkins
American centenarian athlete (1916–2024) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Julia Hawkins (née Welles; February 10, 1916 – October 22, 2024) was an American sprinter and cyclist. She took up track and field after turning 100, and set world records in the 100-meter dash in her age category.[1][2][3]
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Early life and education
Julia Welles was born in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, on February 10, 1916. When she was a few months old, her family moved to Ponchatoula, Louisiana, where they ran a summer resort.[4]
She attended Louisiana State University, where she studied teaching.[5][6] She worked three jobs to fund her college education.[6] After graduating college in 1938,[6] she taught four grades in a one-room school on a banana plantation in Honduras.[7] She returned to the United States with a pet monkey.[7]
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Career
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In 2016, she self-published the memoir It's Been Wondrous!, which she had handwritten over the course of 30 years.[4]
Hawkins was interested in sport throughout her life, and took up competitive cycling at age 75.[5][4] She competed in the National Senior Games as a cyclist for around a decade, beginning in 1995,[6] winning six gold medals in their 5K and 10K cycling races.[7]
She began running when she was 100, after her children encouraged her to enter the Louisiana Senior Games.[5][4] At the 2016 Louisiana Senior Games, she completed the 50-meter sprint in 19.07 and biked in the 5K cycling race.[8]
At the 2017 National Senior Games, she won the women's 100+ 100-meter sprint, with a record time of 36.62 seconds, and finished the 50-meter sprint in 18.31 seconds.[9] In July 2017, she competed in the 100-meter sprint in the 100–104 age category of the USA Track and Field Outdoors Masters Championships, finishing with a time of 39.62.[5][4]
In 2019, she participated in the National Senior Games, where she competed in shot put and the 50-meter and 100-meter sprints.[7]
In 2021, she became the first female runner to record a time in the 100-meter sprint in the 105+ age category, with a time of 1:02.95.[5]
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Personal life
Hawkins met her husband, Murray Hawkins (d. 2013) at an Episcopal Church party as a freshman at LSU.[4] Murray was working as a physicist at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when it was bombed in 1941.[7] Following the attack, Julia and Murray married over the telephone on November 29, 1942, while he continued to work in Hawaii.[1] The couple had four children.[5] While her husband was deployed, Hawkins worked as an educator in Ponchatoula, cycling seven miles each day to the school.[4]
In 1949, Hawkins and her husband built a home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[8] Hawkins was an "avid gardener" who grew bonsai in her backyard.[7][8]
Hawkins lived in Baton Rouge until her death there on October 22, 2024, at the age of 108.[5][1][4]
References
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