Linda Kay Fickus

Who is Linda Kay Fickus?

Linda Kay Fickus, also known in later life by the married names of Linda Kay Snyder and Linda Kay Manns, was the first Miss Alaska Teen USA in 1983, the year the Miss Teen USA pageant debuted. She appeared in the 1983 Miss Teen USA Pageant telecast from Lakeland, Florida and was a press favorite.

When she was crowned, Linda was 17 years old, the daughter of William and Lillian Fickus. She spent much of her childhood growing up on a ranch in the southern foothills of the Brooks Range in the Alaskan "bush".

Family legend says that her heritage traced back to the Hessian Army during the Revolutionary War on her father's side, and to Alaska's ancient Athabascan peoples on her mother's side. She was the third child of four, and the second daughter in the family to win a state pageant title. Her older sister Deborah Fickus was Miss Alaska USA in 1980. She was the granddaughter of Moses Sam, the Traditional Chief of Arctic Village for the last 14 years of his life.