Julie Hulet - A Life Well Lived

Sonora-area teachers, students and swimmers are mourning the loss of a longtime special-education teacher who died of cardiac failure on the morning of July 5th, 2008. Hulet died in the early morning hours Saturday, after a yachting excursion in Rio Vista, She was 56.

"Absolutely fabulous," "magical," "committed," "phenomenal," are all words used to describe the late Julie Ann (Vitek) Hulet, known as "Joules" or "Vitek" by friends.

Hulet was a special day class (moderate learning-disabled students) teacher for sixth- through eighth-grade students at Sonora Elementary School and had been there since 1984, said District Superintendent Margie Bulkin.

"She got the biggest kick out of her own students," Bulkin said. "You walked in and felt the love and joy in the room." Hulet was named Teacher of the Year in 2007, but could have had the title every year, Bulkin said.

"She embodied the ideals of what teachers do in the lives of students," Bulkin said.

Hulet, of Czechoslovakian descent, was born Oct. 9,1951, to Tom and Gayle Vitek in San Jose. Her father encouraged her to become an accomplished swimmer with the Camden Swim Club (now the Almaden Valley Athletic Club) in San Jose. According to her husband, Ben Hulet, she was invited to join the Junior Olympics, but she shifted tracks.

When Hulet was 9, her father was severely burned, and she cared for him and her two younger siblings. When Hulet was 12, her mother, Gayle, died from hypertension at age 38.

Hulet attended Leigh High School in San Jose where, during their junior year, she met her future husband.

"She was always after me," Ben Hulet remembers. "I let her chase me for 10 years." She beat him in the race for Senior Class Vice President and both attended San Jose State University. Hulet earned a bachelor's degree in special education in 1974. She got a job at Sonora High School and taught there for three years.

"She was this tall, dark, athletic, beautiful thing," said Linda Crocker, who met Hulet during this time.

"We just played, we had such a good time," said Crocker, who retired last year as Sonora Elementary's assistant principal, and who described Hulet as an energetic woman who spoke her mind and talked her into getting up at 5:30 a.m. to go swimming. "Her legacy for the people that knew her was Julie was a caregiver," Crocker said, recounting how Hulet cared for her father for three years after he had a debilitating stroke.

Hulet also cared for her son, Brett, who was admitted to the hospital for extensive periods of time at age 16 due to an adverse reaction to prednisone,. She “ always kept her chin up, and provided strength for all of us during these times " , Ben Hulet said. "It's just hard to think that she's not going to walk in the door," Crocker said.

Julie and Ben were married Nov. 21,1981, in Yosemite Valley and recited their own vows in sign language.

"That was probably the most wonderful day," Ben Hulet said. Hulet had moved back to the Bay Area and gone on to get her master's degree in special education from San Francisco State University. She found "a passion" for deaf education and taught at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, said Ben Hulet.

In 1984, they moved to Ponderosa Hills, and Hulet went to work for Sonora Elementary School. She was diagnosed with endometriosis and underwent several surgeries in an attempt to have children, Ben Hulet said.

In 1988, their son, Brett, now 20, was born — the first "in-vitro" baby born in Tuolumne County They had another son, Grant, now 17, through in-vitro as well.

Hulet never gave up swimming and swam the Trans-Tahoe Relay Swim race for years. She also swam the length of Donner Lake and placed from third to first, each time, Ben Hulet said. She was an original member in the Tuolumne County Masters Swim Team and did numerous triathlons, including the Bear Valley Triathlon. It was through swimming that Hulet took Annie Alesna, 34, under her wing. Alesna coached Hulet's son's in swimming, and Hulet approached Alesna to join their swim team for the Tahoe relay. The friends went skiing, snowshoeing and swimming, and Alesna accompanied their family on vacations. Hulet loved the outdoors, Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Buffet.

"There's a lot of things that you share that you don't forget about, but there's no words to describe that relationship," Alesna said.

Ben Hulet will remember her unyielding, total commitment and love for him.

"We look at her life with gratitude," he said. "Our opportunity to be with her, not loss."