By Adam Carlson
Sept 14, 2015
Andy Johnston contributed to this story.
On Sunday, 21-year-old Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell was named Miss America — the first winner from the state in 62 years.
There has been only one other Miss Georgia who went on to be crowned Miss America: Her name was Neva Fickling (then Neva Langley).
Fickling was born on Jan. 25, 1933, in Lakeland, Fla., and was attending Macon's Wesleyan College in 1952 when she won Miss Macon and Miss Georgia to reach the Miss America Pageant in 1953. (According to the Miss America website, Fickling was voted "most popular" each year in high school.)
Fickling toured for a year as part of her Miss America duties and returned to Wesleyan, graduated and married Georgian Bill Fickling. They settled in Macon.
Like Cantrell this year, Fickling won the talent portion of her Miss America competition, with a piano rendition of Aram Khachaturian's "Toccata," according to Wesleyan. Fickling also won the swimsuit and evening gown portions, becoming the only Miss America to date to win all three categories, according to the school. She has been credited with working to save Macon's Grand Opera House from demolition, and a venue at Mercer University's Macon campus bears her name: Neva Langley Fickling Hall.
According to one obituary, Fickling turned her focus from music while raising a family, but returned to the piano with vigor later in life.
She performed both nationwide and in Italy, according to the obituary, and "has been acclaimed as perhaps America's best example of a piano performer who gave up her music for many years and then returned to match — even to exceed — her prior achievements."
Fickling helped found the Georgia Women of Achievement in 1989, alongside several other prominent state figures, after the idea for the organization was proposed by Rosalynn Carter. Its goal: "To honor women in Georgia who have contributed to community through their professional and personal lives." "Neva Jane Langley will always be remembered for her hard work and the difference she made during her year of service as she traveled around the country," Art McMaster, then-president and CEO of Miss America, told the Ledger in Lakeland, upon her death.
One friend told the paper, "She had a wonderful life, there's no doubt about it."
