A Florida community is mourning the death of a high school beauty queen whose love and philanthropy had already changed lives despite her less than two decades in this world. Kadance Fredericksen, 18, died February 17, 2025, in a head-on collision in Santa Rosa County. The Florida Highway Patrol continues to investigate what caused her car to hit a tractor-trailer driven by a 54-year-old man. Her family is grappling with how they’ll be able to move on in the wake of her death.
According to WEAR, the Baker School senior was set to graduate this year. She had received acceptance letters from nine universities. Fredericksen was the Miss Oskaloosa County Teen representative in the 2024 Miss Florida Teen USA pageant. She received thousands of dollars in scholarships she planned to use to train for a career as a veterinarian. Her mother, Lisa Fredericksen, told WEAR her daughter created a nonprofit organization in 2017, called Kada’s Promise. She provided teddy bears and blankets for thousands of children in homeless shelters.
More from CafeMom: Dad Who Tracked Teen Daughters’ to Fatal Crash Site Speaks Out: ‘I Couldn’t Stand Up’
In 2019, at age 12, Fredericksen told WEAR, “No child should have to ever have that feeling of knowing what it’s like to be abused and homeless. I wanted to try to give them as much comfort as I possibly could.”
Miss Florida USA shared a tribute on Instagram. It reads in part, “It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that we share the passing of one of our beloved delegates, Kadance Fredericksen. Our pageant community has lost a beautiful soul who was a true light in this world. She was ambitious, driven, kind, and a leader among her pageant sisters.”
