I’m sad to share the news that longtime Ithaca runner John Hylas died in the Hurricane Lala flooding in Hawaii recently. He was a fixture at High Noon and worked at the Cornell Synchrotron for many years. I never quite figured out what he did, but it involved “tuning the beam,” which he was apparently a savant at.
I still remember meeting John for real the first time at the Groton Labor Day 5K in 2001, just a few months after I moved back to Ithaca, and being invited to preview the course in his Jeep with Karen Ingall. He spent several months of every year in Hawaii and the rest of the year living on his sailboat or housesitting for friends in Ithaca. In the years after he left Cornell, he mostly just visited Ithaca on occasion, spending all his time in Hawaii.
John was a tremendous natural athlete—I want to say that he was a sub-2:00 800m runner, he was part of an early Cornell Ultimate Frisbee team, and he was a top junior tennis player as a youth—he loved to tell the story about beating John McEnroe, who was reported even more badly behaved when he was young. Hylas could be amazingly charming, often had girlfriends half his age, and really did strike up conversations with everyone around. I had a computer industry friend from Seattle who met him at a coffee shop while on vacation in Hawaii, and they somehow realized they both knew me.
That description barely scratches the surface—John was an extremely complicated character—but others on the High Noon list wrote in with their thoughts and memories as well, and agreed to have them shared below. Many people here won’t have known him, but if you did, please feel free to share more.
Subject: John Hylas
From: Sandy Gregorich
Date: Friday, August 21, 2026, 6:51 PM
Did anyone else see this? Hawaii Island community mourns second victim lost to Hurricane Lala flooding | Hawaii News Now
Sandy
From: Casey C. Carlstrom
Date: Friday, August 21, 2026, 7:08 PM
Thanks for posting, Sandy. So tragic.
From: Christopher Mansfield
Date: Friday, August 21, 2026, 8:33 PM
Sometime in the 90s I was running triple hump with Jonathan Brand during a snowstorm. John Hylas drove by us and paced us up the east side of Hurd Road. Except he didn’t just pace, he rolled down his window and started talking to Jonathan about some random thing that got him all bent out of shape and enthusiastic, in the normal Jon Brand way. Completely distracted both of us from the conditions and the run, we didn’t even notice the hill. Hylas got us to the top, said see ya later, and drove off.
Very sad news
Chris
From: Richard Cleary
Date: Friday, August 21, 2026, 10:06 PM
Hi Nooners:
Sad news indeed about John Hylas, a very complicated person. A few thoughts, including President Parlange so he’ll know the list is aware, and Alan Bowman who I know would be interested. I was with Chris M on that run up the hills when he kept us company!
Here’s why the story doesn’t surprise me:
One of the years in the late 90s when I was living in Ithaca and teaching at Cornell, a hurricane was coming up the east coast. (I think maybe this one: Hurricane Floyd - Wikipedia)
John came to run at noon and said he was going to Long Island right after the run to stand on the beach and let the storm winds blow him around. (I can hear him saying “I LOVE extreme weather, man.”)
About a week later he was back and I asked him how it was. He said, “Awesome, just awesome. I was the only person at the beach… but I should have parked my car facing the weather way because the sand blasting into my windshield has made it really hard to see through.” Somebody else waiting for the run said, “Do you have glass coverage in your insurance?” (I think it was Charlie Fay…) John looked around furtively and said, “I do now… how long do you think I should wait until I ask to have a free new windshield?” (I didn’t sell him out, but I was disappointed in that…)
Another Hylas story I remember: He was a great athlete, playing tennis against John McEnroe as a teen (and winning at least once, he claimed) and also a very good hockey player. He used to play in the Ithaca Adult League with my son Joe. Around 2012, probably the last time I saw John, he went on at some length about how much fun it was to play with Joe, what a great passer he was, how he saw the whole ice, etc. Very gracious and made me feel good.
Bottom line: that attraction to extreme weather and danger was nothing new. I am very sorry that it proved tragic.
Have a good weekend all,
Rick
From: John Whitman
Date: Friday, August 21, 2026, 11:00 PM
Thanks for posting that, Sandy, and for the memories, Rick. I wonder if anyone else remembers John’s story about crewing on a sailboat making the crossing between the North and South Island of New Zealand, being forced to sail into the eye of a hurricane by the boat owner at gunpoint.
Here’s some more Hawaii info: Lala Hurricane victims 93-year-old May Doi and retired physicist John Hylas found by neighbors in pastures : Big Island Now
JBW
From: Charles R. Fay
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 4:31 AM
I think Rick captured John accurately in describing him as a complicated person. He was certainly a great deal of fun…and entertaining and loud and controversial and…fast too! There are no doubt dozens of Hylas stories among those of us who knew him well, like the time he arrived late to a PGXC race, throwing his fee at the registration table as he ran toward the start line well after the gun, and the time we immersed ourselves in Fall Creek on a very hot noon run, everyone sitting in the creek in their running shorts while John went buck naked to the surprise of everyone including some of the women on that run.
-Charlie
From: Carl Franck
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 4:45 AM
Thanks for the remembrances. So sorry he has left us, I’m always expecting he will pop up suddenly with a nice thing to say. If I was a woman I bet I would be reminded of my beauty. Rather, I got a strong reason to be glad Zsofi was still with me. Trail running I would think: I know a guy who kicks ass doing this barefoot. Legendary: like his swim in the ice water of Fall Creek on the climax of his farewell High Noon run. Naked, looking like the Adonis he was, of course.
From: Alan Bowman
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 7:12 AM
Thanks for including me, Rick. Very sad news.
I will always remember running in a group with John after we hadn’t seen him for a while. We asked what he had been up to and he smiled his big smile and said he had been “fat doping”. He said it was a new training technique where you got out of shape and then the work you had to do to get back in shape would take you to the next level. To this day, every time I am in one of those periods, I think of it as “fat doping” and I think of John.
Alan
From: Bruce A. Roebal
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 7:27 AM
John once “anchored” his boat by my dock on Cayuga Lake, T-Burg side, borrowed my truck, picked up a friend, and went to run a 5K, in Moravia, I recall. I kept looking at his anchored boat, but it was slowly drifting stage left. I realized the anchor was not holding, so I kept his boat, in very choppy waters, “tied” to the next dock over, keeping it from crashing into the very nice boat parked at the next dock (owned by Ramsey Brous of Ithaca Bakery). The police were called, got John, who came back, jumped on the boat, tossed me a box of chocolates, and sailed away.
John hated the “establishment,” but always had tremendous regard for “moms” everywhere.
He was one-of-a-kind!
Bruce
From: Thomas Walter Rishel
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 8:18 AM
John was himself a “force of nature”; it’s somehow fitting that that is how he died.
Tom R.
From: Karen Anne Ingall
Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 10:00 AM
John Hylas always had nice words to say, very kindhearted. He showed up at my first Half Marathon, inviting me to ride the course in his jeep before the start. He was full of positivity and always hailed me for being a mom. I remember almost catching him at the FL 50’s because he had forgotten his shoes and had worn someone else’s. He laughed about it and high-fived me for a strong effort. A true force of nature!
Could someone share some photos from the High Noon back door.
Karen
From: Herbert John Engman
Date: Sunday, August 23, 2026, 2:59 PM
So sorry to learn about John. He is described as a “physics professor” but I remember him as the talented technician who fine-tuned the synchrotron at Cornell. John was charming, but hard-headed, insisting that he have at least a couple of months off each year to travel to his beloved land in Hawaii. When he lost that job he became extremely embittered. As someone mentioned he was dismissive of authority, including elected officials, but he never seemed to apply that to me in my second career as town supervisor. John was funny, a talented athlete, and truly one of a kind and it will be hard to think of the world without him.
Herb
From: Rick Hoebeke
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2026, 7:17 PM
Let me add my tribute. I’m having great difficulty in handling John Hylas’s death. It was tragic, untimely, certainly unexpected. Interesting to note that his demise was due to a weather event, something he was especially interested in. Many stories about John have been expertly covered by the other friends on our runner’s listserv. John was a talented athlete, took part in a number of sports, and did all exceptionally well. I will remember John for the many funny times he would get into, from skinny dipping at Flat Rock after a long and hot training run to almost missing the start of a cross country race. He made our runs fun, never a dull moment. I prefer to remember John as that tanned Adonis, in cutoff shorts, no shirt, flowing long blonde hair, and usually a beaming smile. Rest in peace, John, maybe prematurely gone but never forgotten.
Coach