Known as “the Hurricane”, this elderly 107-year-old woman hasn’t let age dictate her
abilities!
In fact, back in November 2021, at the age of 105, Julia Hawkins set a new world record for fastest
100-meter run at the Louisiana Senior Games, which is a competition for adults over 50.
Now, aged 107, she seems to show no signs of slowing down!
Hawkins told WWNO that she hasn’t always been running, and that it was actually one of her
children who suggested when she turned 100 that she try doing the 100-yard dash in under 100
seconds. “And I did it in a lot less than that,” she added.
Five years later, at the 2021 Louisiana Senior Games, she wanted to run the dash in under a
minute, though she ended up doing it in just over 62 seconds. “I have done much better than that,”
she admitted. “It was windy and cold, cold. But on that day it seemed to be the best I could have
done with the weather like it was.”
One of the more heartwarming aspects of the race was that Hawkins, a retired teacher, had several
of her old students cheering her on from the sidelines! “At that race I had three different children
from three different schools from where I taught. And they’re 90 years old. They were in the fourth
grade when I taught them and now they’re 90! That tells you how old I am,” she said.
While she was disappointed in not running the dash in under a minute, she did win the title for the
fastest 100 meter dash in the 105+ years category (though, she wasn’t surprised that she won). Her
family was happy that was able to take home the gold for the race and that she broke the world
record for her magnificent achievement!
“Well I knew it was a possibility because there are not that many older people doing things like
this,” she revealed. “When I started running there were only a few, and they were not really
athletes. Just older women trying to do something different. So I usually managed to beat the ones
that weren’t really athletes.”
Aside from a newfound passion for running, Hawkins loves gardening and spending time with her
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren!
She also loved spending time with her husband, Murray Hawkins, to whom she was married for 70
years before his passing several years ago. “He was from New Orleans and I was from
Ponchatoula, which was a little town. When I saw him and met him and saw how smart he was and
good looking, I went home and wrote about him in my diary,” she said of the early days of their
relationship.
The two ended up getting hitched eight years later by telephone! “He was in Pearl Harbor when it
was bombed while he was out there working for the Navy. So when they sent him out there we
were married by telephone. Which was unusual at that time. My father in law went with me to
Baton Rouge to see if it was legal in Louisiana. And it was. So we were married by telephone,” she
said.
As she grows older, Hawkins has some words of wisdom for others, saying that we should always
strive to find the “magic moments” in life. “Magic moments are something you see that you hadn’t
seen often before. Like a sunrise that was especially pretty, or a sunset or a shooting star,” she
said. “Amazing things like that are worth watching for. You don’t have to be wealthy to get to see
them. You just have to be observant and keep a watch what’s out there.”