At 91, She’s Stepping Up in Class

Hulda Crooks has been known to make mountains into molehills. The 91-year-old Loma Linda, Calif., woman has zipped up Mt. Whitney 23 times since she was 66. Now she can add the U.S. Capitol to her athletic achievements, barely working up a sweat as she climbed the 350 steps inside the building’s dome in 30 minutes. “I thought we were just getting started when we reached the top. I found it wasn’t very challenging. I could turn around and go back again,” Crooks told the huffing and puffing reporters and photographers trailing her. Crooks, who holds eight Senior Olympics world records in track and field, made the climb in celebration of National Women in Sports Day.

--It has been 17 years since Walter Hudson, 42, set foot outside his home, and on Thursday he was set to make the big step. And couldn’t. “This is something I wanted to do, but the mental block in my head was so great I couldn’t do it. I broke into tears,” said the Hempstead, N.Y., man who, during his self-imposed exile, grew to 1,200 pounds. “Earlier today, I thought I would walk out. But when the moment comes, you just can’t do it. . . . My legs couldn’t carry me.” Hudson has managed to lose 400 pounds on a diet prescribed and paid for by Dick Gregory, but Gregory had insisted that Hudson leave his home this week to travel to a spa to continue his weight-loss program. Gregory and his assistants are leaving Hudson’s home but Hudson insists he will continue the diet regime of a diet powder and vitamin formula drink, although he will now pay for the mixture himself.

--Box office “Top Gun” Tom Cruise is also top dog to the nation’s schoolchildren, according to a poll by the World Almanac and Book of Facts, which found the actor highest on the list of youths’ heroes. Students in grades eight through 12 were asked to list the people they most admired and Cruise was cited for intelligence, humor, honesty, bravery, appearance and cool. Actor Bill Cosby was second, while basketball star Michael Jordan was third. Fourth was Eddie Murphy, who was No. 1 in 1985, followed by actors Kirk Cameron of “Growing Pains” and Bruce Willis of “Moonlighting,” with Michael J. Fox of “Family Ties” and “Mom” tied for seventh. It was the first year that enough students wrote in the names of their mothers to qualify “Mom” for the top 10. Rounding out the list were actors Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood. President Reagan was fourth in last year’s survey but didn’t rate this year. Also missing were Michael Jackson, ranked first in 1984; Alan Alda, No. 1 in 1982, and Burt Reynolds, top pick in 1980 and 1981.