Credit: Courtesy of Polk County Sheriff’s Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n“When you turn 111, birthday wishes matter,” PCSO posted on social media along with a celebratory message for Williams. “Gertrude Williams asked to meet the Sheriff, and today, that wish came true.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turning 100 years old is uncommon, let alone 111. According to Census, only 5% of the population in Polk County is 80 years old or older, as the median age is roughly 39 years-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Census also shows that in the state of Florida, only 5% of people are 80 years or more, as the median age is roughly 42-years-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pew Research published in 2024 that 78% of people aged 100 or more are women, while only 22% are men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of ethnicity and race, Pew Research published that 77% of people in 2024 who were over 100 years old are White, 8% Black, 7% Asian, and 6% Hispanic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The research center stated that the U.S. centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next 30 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A woman in Polk County had her 111th birthday. She was celebrated by the county sheriff’s office and staff from a home care facility. According to the Polk County Sheriff’s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"6","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDFcL2NmOWU5YmJjLWI0MTUtNGMwNy05ZDA4LTE1YTEwZDhmMTkzZF8xMTQweDY0MS53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNTc2JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiUG9sayBDb3VudHkgd29tYW4gY2VsZWJyYXRlcyAxMTF0aCBiaXJ0aGRheSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.3mWsCAi3ogNjGjrDpRxP2jWOgkGUTluIxF5ic3OYULMMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":61019,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/cf9e9bbc-b415-4c07-9d08-15a10d8f193d_1140x641.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[13203],"class_list":["post-61017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-polk-county-woman-celebrates-111th-birthday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61020,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61017\/revisions\/61020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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