Miss Delaware Amanda Longacre, the woman who was stripped of her title earlier this month after pageant officials determined she was too old, will be allowed to keep the $9,000 in scholarship money she was awarded with the crown.
Longacre, of Bear, was crowned Miss Delaware June 14, edging out runner-up Brittany Lewis, of Wilmington. She was awarded the crown, the scholarship, and the chance to compete in the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September.
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But it all came crashing down last week when organizers
told her she was being disqualified because she was too old.
Longacre, 24, will turn 25 on Oct. 22.
According to the Miss America website, contestants must be between 17 and 24 years of age. Pageant board member and legal counsel Elizabeth Soucek told the News Journal that it's a "Miss America rule" that entrants could not turn 25 before Dec. 31.
"It was verified with a director that I was eligible to compete, as long as I was 24 at the
Miss America pageant," Longacre told the Wilmington News Journal. "I competed on the local and state level and even signed my national contract and it was notarized and no one said anything to me and it was all notarized with my birthday on the contract. I gave them all the proper documents."
Though she was forced to give up the crown, pageant officials are now saying that Longacre will, in fact, be allowed to keep the scholarship money.
"Because we are a scholarship organization we’re going to make sure Amanda gets that scholarship and the new Miss Delaware gets the same scholarship,"
Miss America Chairman and CEO Sam Haskell told ABC News.
"When [Longacre's] contract arrived in the national office and her birth date arrived we realized a mistake had been made on behalf of the Delaware pageant," Haskell said of the birthday mix-up. "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."
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