Judy Hearn isn’t your typical athlete. She doesn’t climb mountains or run marathons. In fact, she doesn’t compete in any sports.
However, at 76 years old, she’s extremely active. She does pilates four mornings per week with Andy Conway in Pismo Beach. And once a week, preferably on Wednesdays, she can be found walking the distance from the Edgewater Inn and Suites along the beach to Oceano and back, roughly an 8-mile walk round trip. It takes her two hours to complete the hike.
Hearn is also a member of the Central Coast Follies dance club (14 years and counting), through which she enjoys tap and dance choreography two times per week with her fellow dancemates, helping to raise money to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. Though she and her husband, Hardy, have sponsored the club for years, she only recently began taking ballet lessons.
She also takes vocal and dance classes at the Coastal Dance and Music Academy in Grover Beach. Of course, she also loves to frequently dance with her husband.
And when she’s not dancing, walking along the beach, or doing pilates, Hearn is hiking with her husband of nearly 45 years (their anniversary is in April). They both enjoy hiking the Pecho Coast Trail together, a 3.7-mile jagged jaunt to the Port San Luis Lighthouse. She hiked the Bob Jones Trail once but said that one may have been a little too easy for her.
It never seems enough for Hearn. She also enjoys ziplining and climbing hills; she said she was one of the first people to finish the first breast cancer walk in South San Luis Obispo County.
How is she able to do it all? For one thing, Hearn is far from retired and has no plans to be so. As a hotelier, she and her husband run several hotels, including the Santa Maria Inn, the Radisson Hotel at the Santa Maria Airport, the Best Western Big America Hotel in Santa Maria, and the Edgewater Inn and Suites in Pismo Beach.
But her exercise routine and businesses aren’t enough to keep her busy, apparently. Hearn is also a member of several boards, including the Allan Hancock College PCPA board, the Rotary Club, the Monday Club, and the Minerva Club, being the most active in the latter two. She was formerly director emeritus for Hearst Castle and a member of the Pismo Beach Chamber of Commerce. Hearn is also a longtime local of Pismo Beach, having lived there for almost 66 years.
She said she’s been active all her life, but became particularly aware of staying active about 20 years ago. Why?
“We’re happier when our bodies are in motion,” she said, “which is good for the body and mind. I just think that when a person gets older, they need to do more for their mind and bodies rather than sit around so much and be sedentary.”
She doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. Without staying active, life is almost meaningless to her. To sum up her attitude, she quoted Ella Fitzgerald: “It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing.”
This article appears in Jan 22-29, 2015.