The Tiara Was Nice, Now Where’s the Scholarship?

Ashley Wood, Miss South Carolina 2004, attends the Wharton School. She has not been able to collect her pageant scholarships.

Interviews with contestants across the country describe a Miss America system in which 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. Local winners across the country have threatened legal action, and some have taken it.

Pageant organizers at each level of the Miss America system say that such problems are the exception and that they occur because contestants miss deadlines or do not dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s to get paid.

In a statement, the Miss America Organization, based in Linwood, N.J., said: “While it is unimaginable that scholarships, which are the heart and soul of Miss America, could or would be wrongly withheld from pageant participants, we are looking into these allegations. We have definitive procedures in place to vet disputes and guarantee state organizations stand behind their scholarship agreements with the Miss America Organization and those to whom scholarships are promised.”

The statement added, “The Miss America Organization is absolutely unaware of any young lady that has ever been denied payment of scholarships after properly following the application process.”

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