High flying: Post Falls woman breaks frisbee record at 99

POST FALLS — The perception may be that after a certain age, you’ve reached most of your milestones.  

Lorna Daniels is proof that you can achieve your goals at any age. 

Two days after her 99th birthday, surrounded by her five children, she set a world record.

She now holds the record for farthest frisbee thrown by a woman over 95, according to the World Flying Disc Federation. 

Bill Douglas, Daniels’ son, said he was proud of his mother.  

“She really feels that age is only a number, and she’s an inspiration to a lot of people and hopefully other seniors to stay active,” Douglas said. 

She wound up throwing the disc 9.73 meters (31.9 feet). Daniels had eight tries to break the record as she took on the challenge last week at Prairie Falls Golf Course, but she only needed four attempts. 

Lori Daniels, Lorna’s daughter, gave her some throwing suggestions ahead of the successful attempt. She is a world-record holder herself and has been inducted into the World Flying Disc Hall of Fame.    

“She made it on her fourth try, and she broke a record that was in place for 18 years by a woman who was from Japan,” Douglas said.   

Lorna attributes her longevity to taking care of herself. 

“When you get old, a lot of people do things for you and then it makes you older,” Daniels said.    

Learning how to throw a frisbee was a new challenge, but she was glad she was able to lean on her daughter’s experience. 

“If you’ve never thrown a disc, it’s hard and there’s no wind to help you,” Daniels said. “You throw it and gee whiz!”  

She said she was “just fooling around” at the behest of her family to try it and managed to actually break the world record.

Daniels has lived a life full of experiences. 

As a teenager, she was in a church about 5 miles away from the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

She went on to graduate and marry a soldier in the Army and had five kids.   

At one point, the family moved to Washington, D.C., and she worked for former Congressman and Olympic silver medalist Ralph Harold Metcalfe. 

In the 1970s, she was part of President Gerald Ford's White House staff.

He was a kind employer to Daniels, and she said she didn’t mind the pressures that came with being “very close to the throne.” 

    Post Falls resident Lorna Daniels broke a world record for furthest to throw a frisbee for a woman over the age of 95. Daniels' daughter, Lori Daniels, holds her own frisbee-based world record and was inducted into the World Frisbee Hall of Fame. Two days after her 99th birthday, Daniels went out to break the record that had been maintained for 18 years.
  

    Two days after her 99th birthday, Lorna Daniels went out to break the record that had been held for 18 years.