BATON ROUGE — Julia "Hurricane" Hawkins, the oldest woman to compete in the National Senior Games, donated her body to Pennington Biomedical Research Center at LSU as researchers seek to learn more about longevity, the 108-year-old's obituary published in The Advocate said.

Hawkins' family said that they are planning a memorial early next year for the Senior Olympian, who started running after her 100th birthday. 

Hawkins passed away peacefully at St. James Place on Oct. 22. 

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. In 2017, at 101, Hawkins earned her nickname by being the oldest woman to compete in the National Senior Games 50-meter and 100-meter dash events. She broke these records two years later. In both years, she ran faster than the winners of the 94-99 age brackets.

An LSU alumna, Hawkins was also the first woman and first American to establish a 105-plus age group track record, WBRZ reported in 2021. Hawkins also won two gold medals in the next three National Senior Olympics.

Hawkins' daughter said her mom always knew she could run and joked that Hawkins used to say, "I knew I could run because I ran when the telephone rang."

"See lots of sunrises, sunsets, rainbows, beautiful birds, beautiful music, things that people say to you that make you feel good, all those wonderful magical moments," Hawkins said, telling WBRZ her advice for a fulfilling life in a previous interview before her death.

In the past, Hawkins always spoke of how grateful she was to be able to be active in her old age, hoping she could inspire others to do the same.

"I hope I'm inspiring them to be healthy and to realize you can still be doing this at this kind of an age," Hawkins said. "I've been here longer than I thought I'd be already."