Eighty years ago, a teenage farm girl from Missouri went to Berlin and came back with two Olympic gold medals.
Born in Fulton, Helen Herring Stephens is forever known as the Fulton Flash for her blazing speed on local and international tracks.
"She actually was a third cousin of mine," said Barb Huddleston, a local historian. "She used to come up to family reunions in the '80s and '90s, and she was fun to be around. People would get a kick out of asking her stories."
Stephens was born Feb. 3, 1918, growing up on a farm near Fulton. According to the State Historical Society of Missouri "Historic Missourians," Helen would train by running to school alongside her cousin's horse, holding onto the stirrup, along with working on the farm.
"From the time I was a small child, I was in training, only I didn't know it," Stephens was quoted by the Historical Society. "I was walking, running, doing chores, building up my body, my lung capacity, my wind, my endurance, everything that people have to train for today."
In 1934, at the age of 15, she was close to six feet tall.
"She was big - not like those smaller girls running now," Huddleston said. "She could take gigantic steps."
Stephens' coach, W. Burton Moore, of Fulton High School, clocked Stephens running the 50-yard dash at 5.8 seconds, tying the world record held at that time by Elizabeth Robinson. He trained her at the school's cinder track.
On March 22, 1935, Moore took her to her first official race in St. Louis, where she ran against Stella Walsh, a gold medalist from Poland who participated in the 1932 Olympics. Stephens beat Walsh in the 50-meter dash at 6.6 seconds, setting a new indoor record on a dirt track. The press gave her the "Fulton Flash" nickname plus another, "The Missouri Express."
The next year, Stephens went to the Olympics in Berlin in 1936. These games were the pet project of Adolf Hitler, and she appeared there with Jesse Owens under tense conditions.
In Berlin, Stephens ran and won the 100-meter race at 11.5 seconds, setting a world record that stood 24 years. She also won a second gold as the anchor leg in the 400-meter relay.
At this Olympics, both Stephens and her 100-meter rival Stanisawa Walasiewicz, of Poland, were accused of being male. The Olympic Committee performed a humiliating physical examination on Stephens and concluded she was a woman. Hitler asked to meet her, and their picture was taken together.
Back home, Stephens also competed in broad jump and discus. She won three national titles. By the age of 18, Stephens had won nine Amateur Athletic Union track and field titles. She and Owens went on tour before Stephens briefly moved on to play professional basketball (The All-American Red Heads) and softball. In 1938, Stephens started her own semi-professional basketball team, The Helen Stephens Olympic Co-Eds, and managed them, as well. They toured with the Harlem Globetrotters and remained active until 1952.
Stephens attended William Woods College in Fulton and graduated as a member of the 1937 class. Her classmate was Marcella Johnson, of Columbia, who will turn 99 years old in September, she said.
"I remember her," Johnson said of Stephens. "The only thing I know is when we had gym and played basketball, I kept my distance. She was a little rough. But she was good."
Johnson added Stephens was very approachable.
"She was a very friendly person," Johnson said.
Ella Hicks, another one of Stephens' classmates, is also turning 99 in a few weeks at her Kentucky home. She said she remembered when Stephens came to college on the heels of her Olympic victories.
"It was so long ago," she said. "Helen came to our school, and she was a tall, large girl. She had just won those (Olympic) trophies for running."
At the time, William Woods was an all-girls school and a two-year college.
"I came in contact with her in school; she was ok," Hicks said. "All of us were interested in her getting that trophy in the Olympics."
After college, Stephens worked as a special assistant in the William Woods track program and established two scholarships there. She was awarded the Award of Distinction in 1965 and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 1980.
The Helen Stephens Sports Complex at William Woods University is named in her honor, and a display case in the entrance exhibits many interesting photographs, trophies and tributes to her. Many of her medals are on display in the alumni center, as well.
In addition, the Helen Stephens Award is presented annually to an outstanding junior athlete who has achieved excellence both in the classroom and intercollegiate athletics. The student must demonstrate the discipline, desire and talent that best describes Stephens' legacy.
During World War II, Stephens served in the U.S. Marine Corps. She later became a research librarian for the Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center in St. Louis until she retired in 1976.
While in her 60s, Stephens returned to competitive track and field events, competing in senior events, maintaining a perfect record. At age 68, she ran the 100-meter dash in 16.4 seconds - four seconds slower than when she was 18. She carried the torch for the first nine Show-Me State Games in Columbia, as well as the Senior Olympic Games.
She was honored in the three separate track and field halls of fame. Huddleston said a group tried to get the U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp in her honor in time for this Olympiad, "but it didn't fly."
In 2004, writer Sharon Kinney Hanson wrote a biography, "The Life of Helen Stephens - The Fulton Flash." It was published through Southern Illinois University Press.
Hanson said she first wrote about Stephens for the publication, "Notable Missouri Women," and then the book came along.
"When I talked to her, I mentioned she should write her memoir," Hanson said of an early interview with Stephens. "She said she was busy, and I should do it. I just believed that her story should be told, although it took quite a few years."
One of the things about Stephens that most impressed Hanson, she said, was her sheer athletic ability.
"The most important thing, she was a lifelong athlete, unlike Jesse Owens. She stayed in track and field all her life," she said. "Every Olympic year, I get called to talk about her here and there. People raise their hands and say, 'I haven't heard of her, but I've heard of Jesse Owens.' It irks the beeswax out of me."
On Jan. 17, 1994, Stephens died in St. Louis at the age of 75. She is buried at Callaway Memorial Gardens in Fulton. At her funeral, her old friend and Olympic runner Oscar Hartmann appeared in the distance, holding the same ceremonial torch she had carried at events in years past. He sprinted toward her grave, and it began sleeting.
