Hawks did okay in school. He did not do well in sports, but by 1910 he made up coaster racing, an early kind of soapbox racing. In 1911, Hawks's younger sister Helen died suddenly of food poisoning. From 1910 to 1912, Hawks went to Pasadena High School. But in 1912, the Hawks family moved to Glendora, California. Frank Hawks had orange trees there. Hawks ended his junior year of high school at Citrus Union High School in Glendora. When there he flew planes for performers.