TAMPA Florida: Just a week after her coronation, the winner of the 2014 Miss Florida pageant was dethroned on Friday when organisers said they had crowned the wrong woman after a vote-count error.
Elizabeth Fechtel, a 20-year-old student at the University of Florida, won this year’s pageant in front of nearly 2,000 spectators last Saturday in St Petersburg, Florida.
But the ballot counter didn’t see that one of the five judges had changed his mind, writing a new line up on the left-hand side of his ballot.
The true Miss Florida contest winner was Victoria Cowen, a 21-year-old student at Florida State University.
Meanwhile, in Delaware, beauty contest winner Amanda Longacre was stripped of her crown as Miss Delaware this week because she will turn 25 in October and pageant rules say contestants must be no older than 24 in 2014.
After the Florida mix-up came to light this week, pageant organizers sought an independent review, said Mary Sullivan, executive director of the Miss Florida pageant. Sullivan delivered the bad news to Fechtel in person on Thursday evening, traveling to her home in Leesburg, Florida.
Reuters
