RIP Julia Hawkins
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I heard about Julia tonight on the news.
Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins, a local sprinter who was the oldest woman to compete in the National Senior Games, died Tuesday evening in Baton Rouge at age 108, family told WBRZ.
Hawkins passed peacefully at St. James Place. Her daughter Jugie Battle says Hawkins was busy right up until the end. She had a visitor at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday and died around 8 p.m.
"She said she was ready to go and then just went," Battle said. "We were really lucky she didn't suffer."
Hawkins started running when she was 100. Her son saw someone had run a 100-yard dash for their 100th birthday and encouraged his mom to do the same thing.
"We went outside with a stopwatch and she did it too, a star was born, she had a whole new career," Battle said.
This part of the story shamed me into going for the walk I was planning to skip today. I'm more than three decades younger than she was when she took up running.. I figured the least I could do was go out for a walk for a couple of miles...
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108!
Not sure I want to live that long.
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I hear you. But she seems to have been the exception who made the most of every minute, right up until the end.
I forgot to post the link I took those snippets from.
