Julia Hawkins, former teacher who broke records in competitive sprinting after turning 100

Asked about her remarkable longevity, the ‘Hurricane’ told The New York Times: ‘Marry a good man and your life will be wonderful, wondrous’

Julia Hawkins, who has died aged 108, was a former teacher who took up sprinting aged 100 and went on to win championships and break records in her age group; her legion of fans christened her “Hurricane”.
“There’s something magic about what happens to you when you get out there,” she said of her running career. “You just feel like your feet have wings.”
She was born Julia Welles in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, on February 10 1916, the second of three children, to Margaret, née McGuire, and Julius Welles. When she was a few months old her family moved to Ponchatoula, Louisiana, to run a summer resort.
She trained to be a teacher at Louisiana State University, and on her first day there she met Murray Hawkins at an Episcopal Church party. “As soon as I saw him,” she recalled, “I knew that was the person I wanted to spend my life with.”
He went on to serve as a civilian physicist with the US Navy, and was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked by the Japanese in 1941. They were married the following year – over the telephone, as he was still in Hawaii. “He was afraid I might not wait till he got back,” she wrote in her memoir.
Having graduated from Louisiana State in 1938, she had a stint in Honduras, where she taught four grades in a one-room school on a banana plantation. When she returned home it was with a pet monkey in tow (over the years her menagerie would grow to include an alligator and an armadillo as well as several turtles and snakes).
She was always keen on sports, and at the age of 75 she took up competitive cycling: for more than a decade she was a serial champion at the National Senior Games, winning gold medals at 5,000 metres and 10,000m.
Then when she was 100, her children were curious to know how she might do at running and in 2016 they persuaded her to enter the Louisiana Senior Games, where she ran the 50m in 19.07 seconds – as well as winning the 5000m bike race.
She was forced to give up cycling when her eyesight deteriorated, but a garlanded five-year running career ensued: among numerous achievements, Julia Hawkins set a 100m world record of 36.62sec in the over-100 category at the 2017 National Senior Games, as well as running the the 50m in 18.31sec; that year she also competed in the 100-104 category at the US Track and Field Outdoors Masters Championships .
In the 2019 National Senior Games she ran the 50m and 100m – as well as competing in the shot put. Two years later she became the first woman to record a time in the 100m in the 105+ age category, clocking 1min 02.95sec. “It was a cold, windy day, but it was worth it,” she said at the time.
Asked about the secret of her longevity, she told The New York Times: “Marry a good man and your life will be wonderful, wondrous.” Indeed, her 2016 autobiography, which she handwrote over the span of three decades, was entitled It’s Been Wondrous! She did, however, also admit: “I’m careful about what I eat. I sleep well. I don’t smoke or drink. I do all the right things.”
Other interests also sustained her: caring for her bonsai trees spread out over an acre of land – “They’re like children” – and fishing with Murray, who died in 2013.
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m left out here at 105,” she said in 2021. “I miss my husband so much. I keep thinking I’m ready to go where he is. But people keep telling me that I inspire them. That’s the goal for my life. I’m staying alive to be an inspiration for a few people.”
Julia Hawkins arranged to donate her body to to the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University, which is conducting a study into longevity. She is survived by her two daughters and two sons.
Julia Hawkins, born February 10 1916, died October 22 2024