Friday, June 27, 2014

Miss Florida Crowns the Wrong Miss Florida

The new Miss Florida is gonna have to give up the beautiful crown she has worn for less than a week.  She didn't get caught posing nude or anything like that.  No ma'am, she didn't do a thing wrong.
Final Five at the crowning last week
Victoria Cohen, Chloe Lopo, Kalen Dennis, Keiko Osumi
Elizabeth Fechtel, Miss Florida

But now she has to give that coveted crown to the pretty girl on the far left...

Fox 13 in Tampa is reporting that "a scoring error in last weekend's Miss Florida pageant crowned the WRONG winner, causing organizers to announce a new Miss Florida today..."  Lord have mercy!  What happened here?  How in the world?  This is pageant drama nightmares are made of.
This is the statement from the Miss America Organization:
Today, the Miss Florida Organization announced that 1st runner up, Victoria Cowen, was awarded the title of Miss Florida 2014. Yesterday, the Miss Delaware Organization crowned their 1st runner up, Brittany Lewis, as Miss Delaware 2014.

The Miss Delaware release stated “it was determined that Amanda Longacre exceeded the age requirement in order to be eligible to compete.” Once the Executive Director was made aware that the winner was ineligible to compete due to her age, action was taken to uphold to the MAO rules and crown their 1st runner up, Brittany Lewis. Both Amanda and Brittany will be award the Miss Delaware Scholarship.
In Florida, upon the realization that a tabulation error resulted due to a judge making a change on their score sheet that was not caught when the scores were tabulated, the Miss Florida title was wrongly awarded to Elizabeth Fechtel. Action was taken with an independent CPA to thoroughly review the judges scores and it was determined that the named 1st runner up, Victoria Cowen, was actually the winner of Miss Florida 2014.
We understand the impact that news of this type may have on these women and each of these state organizations and the great concern that goes with it. The Miss America Organization ensures there is compliance with the rules set forth among our state organizations to assure the integrity of our program and especially the judging process.


Talk about a nightmare...this really is sad.  I feel terrible for Elizabeth Fechtel.  Her dream has been squashed big time.  I just hope that she's surrounded by loving people tonight, bless her heart.  This will be a true test in grace for this young lady.

And what now?  The new Miss Florida Victoria Cowen gets the crown and will go on to compete in the prestigious Miss America pageant in September.  Bless her heart, this error was not her fault.   I wish her the best!

2 comments:

Tammy B said...

Bless her heart! I guess she didn't have the success of Suzanne Sugarbaker to keep her crown.

Miss Janice said...

I feel for both girls. It's just an awkward situation.