Dominated girls' distance running nationally in the 1970s, and for more than 30 years she and her sister, Mary, held the top girls' distance records in North Carolina. 

The 1977 Track & Field News Girls’ Track & Field Athlete of the Year, Julie was a 4-time state outdoor track and field champion, winning the 880-yard run (1975 and 1977) and the mile (1976 and 1977, when she set a then-national record in the mile of 4:43.1). The girls didn't run the 2-mile until 1978, or she likely would have won that, as well (she won the mile by more than 20 seconds). Incredibly, more than 40 years later, Julie’s 4:43.1 mile is still the fastest mile/1600-meters ever run at the state meet by nearly 10 seconds (the fastest 1600 meters, which is 9 meters short of a mile, is 4:51.54 run in 2012). 

In college at N.C. State, she twice won the ACC’s Anthony J. McKelvin Award (1981 & 1982) signifying the ACC’s best athlete, male or female, and in 1980 won the Broderick Award, which signified the nation’s best female collegiate athlete. She won 7 national titles in track and cross country, 11 All-American honors, and helped N.C. State to 2 ACC titles and 2 national titles (1979 and ’80) 

She is a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the N.C. State Athletic Hall of Fame, the Cardinal Gibbons Athletics Hall of Fame, and the Cardinal Gibbons Alumni Hall of Fame, as well as a member of the ACC’s 50th Anniversary Cross Country team, and the NCHSAA’s “100 to Remember” female athletes.