Tiara Tribulations: Suits Filed Over 'Game of Gotcha'
Some beauty pageant winners who were unable to collect promised scholarships have taken their disputes to court.
The plaintiffs include Miss South Carolina 1992 and Miss Five Boroughs of New York 2004, the New York Times reports. The South Carolina suit settled and the New York contestant won a default judgment, paid after a TV station aired her story.
The Times interviewed contestants in state and local pageants affiliated with the Miss America Organization and learned that some contests are in disarray.
“Local pageant directors do not return telephone calls and e-mail messages for months, local competitions close down before scholarships are distributed, and the fine print in contracts creates hurdles,” the newspaper wrote.
The Times featured the story of Ashley Wood, who won South Carolina’s pageant in 2004 but has yet to receive her $20,000 scholarship. She says the state pageant told her it would not pay because two local pageants she won failed to pay her $950. And the national pageant refused to pay her $5,000 because the state did not pay.
“It’s like a game of gotcha,” she said. “What is very clear to me is that the goal is to not give out the scholarships if at all possible.”
The Miss America Organizations issued a statement saying it has procedures to guarantee that state organizations stand behind their scholarship commitments. While it is investigating new allegations, the group “is absolutely unaware of any young lady that has ever been denied payment of scholarships after properly following the application process.”
