Miss Delaware Amanda Longacre has just been stripped of her crown. Longacre was crowned on the 14th of June, but was recently disqualified for "being too old." The Miss America Organization has an age limit for contestants, and according to the rule book, it says that candidates must only be 17 to 24 years old. Longacre, as of now, is still 24. However, she will be turning 25 in October.
The crown was passed down to the candidate who was next in line, and it was the 24-year-old Brittany Lewis. Lewis was crowned in a relatively brief ceremony on Thursday at the Dover Downs Hotel Casino. However, despite the fact that the crowning has already been given to someone else, Longacre is not backing down.
Longacre insists that she has signed a contract with the organization and that her age and her birthday was clearly stated there. In addition to this, a member of the board was also present and even signed off on the contract on a local, state, and national level. She was only notified about her age being an issue on Tuesday.
Now that she has been disqualified from the competition, she can no longer compete in the Miss America Pageant which will happen in September. Plus, she also loses all of the prizes that were awarded to her as part of her winnings. This includes her $11,000 scholarship.
The organization has already released a press release on this matter and their spokesperson said, "Following the Miss Delaware pageant, it was determined that Amanda Longacre exceeded the age requirement in order to be eligible to compete. Therefore, the Miss Delaware 2014 title is awarded to Brittany Lewis. The Miss Delaware Pageant is proud to congratulate Brittany and wishes Amanda the very best on her future endeavors."
To salt to the wound, the Miss Delaware, which used to have Longacre's picture, have been stripped of any trace of her after the organization gave its press release.
