Linda Milianta is the Lady Who Walks

A familiar figure in Cedar City, Linda Milianta is known to many as “the lady who walks.”

Her cheery disposition and ever-positive attitude have brightened the days of many over the years as she has passed by, and after logging more than 50,000 miles and wearing out countless pairs of shoes, she continues to walk the same five-mile route every day, seven days a week, all year-long, in rain, wind or shine.

Before retiring in 2010 after a 32-year career as a second grade teacher at North Elementary School, she used to walk every day after school to help her to unwind and have time to herself. Back then, many people recognized her via the bright yellow headset and radio she’d carry with her as she walked. Now, although with smaller headphones, Linda continues her walks in the mornings and listens to country stations or to Thunder 91 as she rambles, waving from time to time to friends or fellow travelers who call out or honk car horns.

She knows the town well. Her father, Robert Avedesian, came to Cedar City to serve in the Army Air Corps training detachment here and met and married LaZon Woolsey. They were both highly active figures in Cedar City for decades, and parents to Betty (Rosenberg) and of Linda, who met her sweetheart, Marion (Tiffer) C. Robb, at Cedar City High School. The couple got engaged in his white 1964 Ford truck on her graduation night and planned on living happily ever after together. Linda worked while he attended college and anxiously awaited the birth of their first child.

Two weeks after their daughter Debbie’s birth, Tiffer left for the Vietnam War. Just months before his slated return in 1969, however, tragedy struck and he drowned in the South China Sea. The unwelcome news reached home and turned Linda’s world upside down.

After Tiffer’s passing, Linda says the Cedar City community was very supportive. She later got to know many Vietnam veterans while working on the war memorial in town, but her early dream of being a stay-at-home mother had long-since changed.

“I realized I needed to take care of myself,” Linda says today, still with tears in her eyes. “I went back to school with help from Veterans Affairs and earned my degree from SUU in 1977 in elementary education. At first the only reason I wanted to teach was so I could have summers off with my children but it turned out to be the perfect job for me and I loved it.”

Soon after graduation she was hired to teach second grade at North. She was terrified for her first day, but fellow teacher Donna Benson (’76) took her under her wing and helped her get through those first couple of tough years.

“Donna became the best friend I ever had. We taught second grade together for 20 years,” Linda says of her friend who passed away in January.

Linda poured her heart and soul into her career and was known as a caring and enthusiastic teacher. The children were her favorite thing about her job and her fellow teachers supported and cared for her like family, she says.