Glen Lake Grad Adds Pacific Ocean to Life's Journey in Completing World's Toughest Row
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
August 18, 2026
Julie (Adams) Bennett has lots of memories from her days at Glen Lake High School. Many are great, some not so great.
And, while she took all of them with her as she just rowed across the Pacific Ocean, her battle with anorexia was at the top.
“In our culture, thin is beautiful, and it always has been,” said Bennett, a 1982 Lakers graduate. “We grew up in the '70s with all of the magazines and all of the thin models. I was kind of a fat kid in junior high. You know, you get a little chunky, and then you grow taller. Well, I got chunky, but I never grew taller.”
Bennett found herself in a battle with anorexia, leading her to raise funds and awareness for the National Eating Disorders Association as she recently competed in and completed the World's Toughest Row. The crossing occurred after more than a year of preparation, and NEDA was one of four organizations the team supported as part of taking on the challenge.
“I was teased a lot for my weight in high school,” recalled Bennett, who experienced hurtful name-calling. “It isn't the only reason why I became anorexic, but I did. I know people who don't recover from anorexia. It takes their life. I was one of the lucky ones”
Bennett was a middle distance runner on the Lakers track team and a key member of the cheer team. Fall was spent supporting the football team and winter the basketball team as Title IX was just starting to impact sports opportunities for girls.
“When I was in junior high, there were no competitive girl sports,” Bennett said. “I know a lot of people look at cheerleading and think ‘oh they're just fluffy girls who are really girly and just want to cheer.’ But every summer, we did competitive cheer camps.”
Bennett picked up rowing when her youngest son, Steven, joined the sport as a freshman in high school in the Grand Rapids area. It wasn’t long before she began coaching adults and kids in the sport after years of teaching group fitness and yoga.
Bennett points to positive role models, like her mother, Pam, and multiple coaches, as having played significant roles in her battle with overcoming anorexia.
“They really put me on a path to make wise decisions about the food that I eat and about physical fitness,” she said. “So I had always just had a much healthier relationship with exercising and food than I could have. I mean, I could have gone off the rails.”
Bennett believes high school sports allow student-athletes learn discipline. It was that same discipline that helped her complete the 2,800-mile trip across the Pacific Ocean just a few weeks ago.
Bennett, along Erin Enk-Wiese, Susan Katt and Jak Kazmarek, left Monterey, Calif., on June 9 after a five-day weather delay. The four rowers landed 40 days later in Kauai, Hawaii.
The average crossing time for crews of all sizes over the history of the World’s Toughest Row is 62 days. The first boat to conquer the world’s deepest ocean this year took 36 days. Bennett’s team, Moar Than Us, was thrilled the trip was pretty much free of challenging weather, injury and other significant incidents.
“The discipline of sports, and the coaching that I got, was what really set me on a path to – not just for rowing, but it really just set me on a path – to be disciplined about my physical fitness,” she said. “You really need the discipline, but you don't think that you do, because you think you know everything when you're 16. All of that discipline really, really helped me mentally and physically and put me on a journey of lifelong physical fitness.”
Bennett’s crew took turns taking two-hour shifts in daylight and three-year shifts in the dark. The boat always had two in the rowing seats and two below resting and recovering. They did start and finish the race with all four crew members playing a role up top.
Bennett, who went on the graduate from Hope College and land her first teaching job at Glen Lake, is quick to identify the key to coaching high school sports today, especially rowing. She’s on the coaching staff of the Grand Rapids Rowing Club, one of just a small number of high school-sponsored rowing clubs in Michigan.
“You teach them to love the sport, and then you teach them how to do it,” Bennett said. “You have to teach them how to love it. I was an endurance person and rowing certainly is an endurance sport.”
Rowing is a natural sport for the 5-foot-4 former Laker, despite her undergoing hip replacement during her 40s.
She fondly remembers her track experience at Glen Lake. While she mostly ran the 400 and 800 along with relays, her coaches entered her in all field events in hopes she could pick up a point or two.
“I don't have quick-twitch muscles, so I was not good enough to be in the sprints, but I ran sprint relays,” acknowledged Bennett. “Because we were a small team, if there was a third place to be had, coaches would throw me in. I threw shot put a couple of times. I remember throwing shot put against Mesick. They could throw it twice as far, but I got the point in third.”
Bennett noted the Pacific crossing annually attracts sailors and navigators, along with a few others.
“It also attracts just people who are adrenaline junkies,” she said. “People who just want that jolt from doing something amazing.”
Bennett though, did it for other reasons, including raising awareness for anorexia.
“The best message that you can give somebody is that you can be any age, any gender, any size, and do it,” she said. “You can do difficult things, and you shouldn't shortchange yourself by not being mentally ready for that challenge.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Julie Bennett stands in formation with her Glen Lake cheer team in 1979. At right, Bennett stands next to a sign explaining the accomplishment after completing the Pacific Ocean crossing with her crewmates. (Middle) Bennett, front row and fourth from left, poses for a team photo with her high school track team. (Below) The Moar Than US team rows toward Hawaii, and celebrates its accomplishment. (Glen Lake photos courtesy of the Glen Lake yearbook staff. Moar Than US photos courtesy of World's Toughest Row, More Than US team and Bennett family.)
Heartbreak Pushes St. Francis to Finish Strong
June 1, 2013
By Chip Mundy
Special to Second Half
HUDSONVILLE – After finishing as runner-up last year, the Traverse City St. Francis girls track and field team did not need any emotional motivation Saturday at the MHSAA Division 4 Final at Baldwin Street Middle School in Hudsonville.
St. Francis got it, anyway. But it came in a painful way.
Senior Kaitlyn Hegewald tore her Achilles tendon in her left foot as she began the third leg of the 800 relay and could not return to action. With Hegewald sidelined, the Gladiators posted three victories and captured their first MHSAA championship in track and field.
“I got the hand-off and took a few steps, and I just couldn’t step on my foot anymore,” Hegewald said while sitting in a golf cart with her left foot wrapped in tape.
St. Francis coach Julie Duffing was watching from across the field and did not realize what had happened.
“I actually thought she got spiked, and then she kept trying to go,” Duffing said. “Coach finally yelled at her to stop, and that’s when she went down. We were expected to win that race, and we were ahead.”
It could have had devastating consequences, but the Gladiators regrouped.
Freshman Holly Bullough came through with victories in the 800 (2:16.53) and the 1,600 (5:07.37), while senior Lauren Buckel defended her Finals championship in the 400 in 59.54 seconds and was runner-up in the 200, which she won last year as well.
“We had one of our top runners tear her Achilles in the 800,” Buckel said. “I think it broke everyone’s heart.
“She’s a senior. It really kind of dampened the mood because we were hoping to come away with a state title in the beginning, then it kind of gave us a ‘let’s do this for Kaitlyn’ mentality.”
Buckel and Hegewald had a special bond that went beyond teammates.
“Lauren and Kaitlyn have done handoffs together since the seventh grade,” Duffing said.
Buckel’s title in the 400 was especially gratifying as that event has caused her both grief and happiness during her career. In fact, she calls the 400 “my beast.”
“That race has kind of been my beast, kind of something that I’ve struggled with,” she said. “It’s been a challenge for me. I’ve ran it now for nine years, ever since the fourth grade.
“It’s always been such a hard race.”
Duffing has seen first-hand how Buckel has struggled with the event.
“Last year she didn’t want to run it, so we did the whole ‘you’re not running it, and you don’t have to run it,’ thing until she asked me to run it,” Duffing said. “And when she asked, it was hers.
“She’s a beast, and the beast conquered the beast.”
Meanwhile, Bullough broke through in her first MHSAA Final in amazing fashion. She won the 800 by more than 5 seconds and took the 1,600 by more than 10 seconds. She also was runner-up in the 3,200 and anchored the 3,200 relay team that finished second.
“In the mile I was seeded first, and I won that, so it was very exciting,” Bullough said. “It wasn’t as close as I thought it would be, but they still pushed me as hard as I could go. In the 800, I was seeded second by like milliseconds, and that one was very hard – harder than I expected. But in the end I had extra power to pull through, and that’s what I did.”
And Bullough spoke of how the injury to Hegewald affected her during the meet.
“That was heartbreaking,” she said. “She’s a senior and everything, and that just made us so sad. But it also made us want to win more for her.”
Runner-up Reading, which finished second to Traverse City St. Francis by 14 points, won three events, including the 400 and 1,600 relays. Junior Michelle Davis won the 300 hurdles in 44.92 seconds, breaking the LP Division 4 record of 44.98 set in 2010 by Megan Heffner of Kinde-North Huron. Davis also ran on both winning relays, as did sophomore Jennifer Davis and freshman Sam Pfeiffer.
The other double winner was Miranda Johnson of Ottawa Lake Whiteford, which placed sixth. Johnson, a junior, repeated as champion in the long jump and also won the 200. Johnson broke the LP Division 4 meet record with a leap of 18 feet , 2 ½ inches, topping the previous record of 17-11¾ set by Amanda Weber of Portland St. Patrick in 2004.
Other repeat champions were senior Elizabeth Herriman of Sand Creek in the shot put, junior Addie Schumacher of Beal City in the high jump, senior Chantel Davenport of Athens in the 100 hurdles and junior Kirsten Olling of Breckenridge in the 3,200.
The other champions were junior Jade Madison of New Buffalo in the discus, junior Amanda MacDonald of Coleman in the pole vault and junior Ashley White of Detroit Edison Academy in the 100.
Royal Oak Shrine won the 800 relay, and Hillsdale Academy took the 3,200 relay.
PHOTOS: (Top) Sprinters approach the finish line during a 100-meter dash preliminary Saturday. (Middle) Ottawa Lake Whiteford's Miranda Johnson (middle) finished first in the long jump and 200 and second in the 100. (Photo by Carter Sherline. Click to see more photo coverage from RunMichigan.com.)