A short Biography taken from the AYYA newsletter.
Linda Lorenz Sengpiel AKA First Lady Of Yo was born April 29, 1943. She first discovered the toy at her fathers company picnic when she was 3 years of age. She fell madly in love with it and from that moment on she was never without one.
By the age of 8 she was winning most of the yo-yo contests she would enter. By the age of 13, after competing and taking home the gold in a regional competition in Akron, Ohio with approximately 500 contestants Mr. Donald Duncan, founder of the Duncan Yo-yo Company asked her to stop competing & become a company spokesperson.
Linda developed her own company and traveled the world amazing people of all ages with her skills and motivating the crowds with her positive reflections from her struggles and successes in life.
A few favorite quotes from Linda were “small accomplishments makes for big confidence.” “If you do one thing well, you're doing well.” With this in mind, Linda developed "The Wishing Yo-yo" - it states “make your wish as the yo-yo spins, however, wishing doesn’t make things happen, hard work does. But wishing gives you hope and hope is the magic word. Hope gives you a positive feeling & positive people make good things happen.”
Linda’s accomplishments with the simple toy were countless. She was the first woman, as well as one of the very few greatest yo-yo artists in the world, for approximately 40 years of her 57 years of life. Linda went home to be with the Lord on April 13, 2001 with yo-yos in each hand.
Linda was inducted into the National Yo-Yo Hall of Fame in 2006. [1] You can find her profile here.
Signature Yo-yos[]
- YoYoJam: Linda Sengpiel SpinFaktor 1998
- Supersonic yo-yo pack: Linda Sengpiel