ORLANDO, Oct.11. IRENE Hackett, Florida's beloved "Mrs. Swimming" passd away at the age of 77 last Sunday following a six-moth battle with cancer. At her funeral, held yesterday, friends and family sang "Good night, Irene, we'll see you in our dreams."<\/p>\n
Since 1962 Hackett served as executive director and registrar for Florida Swimming, touching the lives of an estimated 75,000 swimmers over the years. Among them are Olympic gold medalists rowdy Gaines, Brooke Bennett, Nancy Hogshead, Brad Bridgewater, Mary Wayte and Troy Dalbey. Accoring to her daughter, Linda Berry, Irene was so dedicated to the sport "she worked until the day she went into the hospital."<\/p>\n
In addition to her Florida responsibilities, Mrs. Hackett and her husband of 54 years, Bud, also served many years as the organizers of the annual USA Swimming convention. The 2000 convention is being held now, in Orlando, and many of the delegates attended yesterday's funeral. "Mom's timing was impeccable," commented her daughter.<\/p>\n
Born in Swampscott, Mass., Mrs. Hackett and her husband moved to Orlando in 1959. When their daughrs got involved in swimming, the couple got involved as well. "Then we were hooked," Irene used to say. Our sport is the better as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ORLANDO, Oct.11. IRENE Hackett, Florida's beloved "Mrs. Swimming" passd away at the age of 77 last Sunday following a six-moth battle with cancer. At her funeral, held yesterday, friends and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[7818,356,198,7821,32,7820,7817,7819,66,3244,189,3455,7822,1995],"class_list":["post-1852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz","tag-accoring","tag-brad-bridgewater","tag-brooke-bennett","tag-executive-director-and-registrar-for-florida-swimming","tag-florida","tag-irene-hackett","tag-linda-berry","tag-mary-wayte","tag-massachusetts","tag-nancy-hogshead","tag-orlando","tag-rowdy-gaines","tag-swampscott","tag-troy-dalbey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n