ORLANDO, Fla.  – The 2024 Amateur Athletic Union National Strength Sports Awards voting is complete, and this year’s award recipients include the youngest AAU Strength Sports Hall of Fame inductee in history, four members of a powerlifting/weightlifting family from California, and a longtime competitor and international judge with more than 40 years of AAU Strength Sports participation.

The 2024 AAU Strength Sports Hall of Fame inductee is Evan Pittman, 25, of Phoenix, Arizona, who starred as a youth and teen strength sports athlete between ages 10-18, breaking more than 100 world powerlifting records in nine different weight classes while winning 25 AAU Junior Olympic Games (JROG) and 18 AAU World Powerlifting titles. Pittman was also undefeated and broke records in AAU World and JROG Feats of Strength competitions, was unbeaten in four JROG Combines in head-to-head competition with athletes from other sports, and won the AAU Men’s Overall Strength Sports Athlete of the Year three times. He was profiled in the documentary “Strings to Iron,” which chronicled his powerlifting training and classic violin performances, and in 2016 was covered in multiple media outlets, including USA Today, Sports Illustrated and Bodybuilding.com, when he became the only powerlifter in history to break more than 100 world records in competition while still in high school.  Pittman most recently was a Fulbright Scholar teaching Advanced English in Bogota, Colombia, and will enter Cornell Law School in the Fall. He becomes the youngest competitor in history to be inducted into the AAU Strength Sports Hall of Fame.


(Evan Pittman, 2024 Strength Sports Hall of Fame)

Longtime AAU competitor and volunteer Gordon Santee, 77, of Henderson, Nevada, will be the first recipient of the new AAU Strength Sports Martin Drake Legend Award, named in honor of the former AAU Strength Sports Chairman and Hall of Famer who promoted and competed in AAU Strength Sports for more than 50 years. Santee has been involved in AAU powerlifting and bodybuilding as a competitor and judge for more than 40 years, has broken nearly 200 world records, and has competed in meets all over the world. Beyond being a multi-time world champion athlete, Santee is revered as one of the most knowledgeable strength sports judges in the United States and chairs the technical judging committees of multiple powerlifting federations. He was inducted among the inaugural 2013 AAU Strength Sports Hall of Fame class, and is also a past recipient of the AAU Don Haley Achievement Award, the AAU Bodybuilding Legends Award, and the AAU Strength Sports Brother Bennett Award for volunteerism.


(Gordon Santee, Martin Drake Legend Award)

The 2024 Brother Bennett Award recipient is Dr. Megan Johnson-McCullough, of Oceanside, California. Dr. McCullough is a recognized fitness/nutrition (Master Trainer) expert, the author of 11 books, and has trained countless AAU Strength Sports national and world champion athletes. She is an AAU world bodybuilding and physique champion herself, and a former two-time AAU Women’s Overall Strength Sports Athlete of the Year. She has served as the Athlete Representative for AAU bodybuilding, ensuring other participants are prepared and understand how the competitions run/work. Dr. McCullough has run a fitness studio in Oceanside CA for 12 years (called Every BODY’s Fit) and is also a fitness model and professional natural body builder. She also owns an outpatient substance abuse treatment center, in her continued efforts to help others. The Brother Bennett Award recognizes extraordinary, selfless service to AAU Strength Sports, and is named in honor of a brother of the Sacred Heart at Saint Stanislaus College, who introduced the first drug-tested powerlifting competitions in the 1970s, paving the way for drug-free powerlifting in the United States.


(Megan Johnson-McCullough, Brother Bennett Award)

The 2024 AAU Strength Sports Meet Director of the Year is Dr. Bryan Bowens, 40, a math teacher in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District, Bakersfield, CA.  Dr. Bowens has been involved in powerlifting for more than 25 years, and recently formed an AAU Strength Sports weightlifting and powerlifting club with more than 155 athletes and coaches.  In the past year, he hosted four AAU Strength Sports meets, each bringing in new AAU members: the AAU California Powerlifting, Weightlifting, & Feats of Strength Winter Championships; the AAU Bakersfield Kindness Lift Off; AAU Dia de los Niños Feats of Strength Showdown; and the AAU California Powerlifting Spring Championships.  AAU Strength Sports are a staple in the Bowens household; his wife Michelle Juanatas-Bowens and daughters Mikaella and Brianna all won Athlete of the Year honors in 2024. 


(Bryan Bowens, Meet Director of the Year)

A strength sports judging panel also selected AAU Strength Sports Athletes of the Year in multiple disciplines. The 2024 AAU Strength Sports Athletes of the Year winners are:
2024 AAU Powerlifting Senior Male National Athlete of the Year: Raymond Fougnier
2024 AAU Powerlifting Junior Male National Athlete of the Year: Max Sandoval
2024 AAU Powerlifting Senior Female National Athlete of the Year: Michelle Juanatas-Bowens
2024 AAU Powerlifting Junior Female National Athlete of the Year: Mikaella Bowens
2024 AAU Weightlifting Junior Female National Athlete of the Year: Brianna Bowens


(Michelle Juantas-Bowens, 2024 Overall Female Athlete))

Additionally, the judging panel selected one Overall Male and one Overall Female National Athlete of the Year from among all Athlete of the Year winners. The 2024 AAU Strength Sports Overall Male National Athlete of the Year is Max Sandoval, 12, of Buellton, California, and the 2024 AAU Strength Sports Overall Female National Athlete of the Year is Michelle Juanatas-Bowens, 40, of Bakersfield, California.


(Max Sandoval, Overall Male Athlete of the Year)

The awards will be presented, and Hall of Fame induction will occur Saturday, September 28, during the AAU World Powerlifting, Weightlifting, Feats of Strength and Bodybuilding Championships in Laughlin, Nevada during a ceremony which will also feature a tribute to longtime AAU Strength Sports volunteer Martin Drake.

The AAU has the longest-standing history of conducting strength sports competitions in the United States, dating to the early days of Olympic weightlifting and bodybuilding (1930s), and the first powerlifting competitions ever held (1960s). The AAU Powerlifting Hall of Fame was established in 2012 to recognize those who influenced the sport of powerlifting, and in 2015, it was expanded to become the AAU Strength Sports Hall of Fame, including the very best across all AAU Strength Sports disciplines – AAU Weightlifting, AAU Powerlifting, AAU Bodybuilding/Physique, and AAU Feats of Strength/Strongman/Strongwoman/Combine.