This year's Miss Delaware beauthy pageant was recently marred by controversy after the winner, Amanda Longacre, was discovered to be too old to meet the pageant's inclusion requirements. ABC News said Miss Ameria officials discovered that Longacre violated an age provision in her signed contract, which states that she should not turn 25 before December 31 this year. The beauty queen will be turning 25 in October.
Miss America Chairman and CEO Sam Haskell told ABC News today, "When the contract arrived in the national office and her birth date arrived we realized a mistake had been made on behalf of the Delaware pageant. I don't know how they missed it and I don't know how she missed it. It breaks my heart that she went through all of this but she is not eligible and we have to honor the rules,
24 year-old Brittany Lewis, who was runner-up to Longacre in the Miss Delaware pageant and is a former Miss Wilmington, was crowned the new Miss Delaware on Thursday night at a special ceremony in Dover. Longacre was stripped of her title two days before.
Longacre was awarded with a scholarship worth $9,000. When the issue of the prize came up, officials with the Miss America Organization confirmed that Longacre would still be receiving the scholarship money she had won on June 14, but will be relinquishing the right to represent the state in the upcoming Miss America pageant, which is scheduled in September. Lewis will also be awarded with the same scholarship prize money, and that each of the runners-up will also be earning the additional scholarship money of the higher finish, Haskell added.
Haskell added that this is the first in his eight-year service as a Miss America Organization CEO that such error had occurred. He said, "This [the rule that contestants have to remain 24 the entire year in which they compete] is something that has been in effect for years. It's up to the local and state organizations - and we have thousands and thousands of girls compete each year - to make sure their contestants are eligible. We leave that in their hands and only when it comes to us do we get into the specifics and double-check and triple-check," Haskell explained.
