Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507240068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SHANNON D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But the document that led to her loss of her state crown had arrived the day before through Miss Virginia Pageant President Robert Bennett's fax machine.
Ballengee, in an interview Friday, recounted the events that led to being the first Miss Virginia ousted in the pageant's 42 years in Roanoke.
She said Bennett called her to his office just before noon on Tuesday. She walked in to find the pageant's executive board waiting for her.
"It's not a good day," Ballengee recalls Bennett telling her.
Bennett had received confirmation from the University of Miami Law School that Ballengee was not a "first-year law student" as she had confidently introduced herself on the night she was crowned.
Instead, she had been placed on a waiting list to be admitted by the school.
The executive committee had also found another discrepancy in her resume. In 1994, when Ballengee entered the Miss Virginia pageant as Miss Amherst County, she stated on her fact sheet that her grade-point average was 4.0.
That 4.0, however, was not a cumulative grade-point average, but from only one academic semester.
The board told her they were expecting her cumulative grade-point average on the fact sheet.
Ballengee said she interpreted the question, which simply asked for her "GPA," as the most current average she had earned for one semester.
"Once I addressed that issue, they knew it wasn't an issue," Ballengee said Friday.
The pageant's board, however, felt that the two issues were enough to take the crown away.
"It's the cumulative effect," said Tom Roe, a board member and one of the pageant's attorneys.
"We don't think [the grade-point average] was a major factor, but when you look at the cumulative mistakes and when you consider the effect it would have on the integrity of the pageant," the pageant board decided it was enough.
Board member Steve Musselwhite said he approached Ballengee with three possibilities: The pageant could let her remain Miss Virginia, the board could take back the crown or Ballengee could resign.
The first possibility could have had damaging effects on both Ballengee and the pageant, Musselwhite told her.
"As a board, we have a responsibility of not hiding anything," Musselwhite said. He said the pageant had been accused of "sweeping it under the rug," and board members knew they could "lose complete and total credibility."
As for Ballengee, Musselwhite warned she would undergo constant criticism and media attention if she kept the crown, even at the Miss America Pageant.
But Ballengee said she was prepared to weather the controversy. And she says two board members told her they were receiving pressure from Miss America Pageant officials to take the crown away.
Roe said the executive committee offered Ballengee a chance to resign and gave her 24 hours to make her decision.
That night, Ballengee said she went home to pray.
The next morning, Wednesday, Ballengee called Baker, the pageant executive director, and told her she was refusing to step down.
"There were no new issues," Ballengee said. "They knew about everything."
Once Ballengee got off the phone with Baker, she went to Roanoke attorney Don Huffman.
Thursday morning, she walked into the Roanoke Valley Regional Chamber board room, where the pageant board had gathered. Huffman could not be present because of a trial, Ballengee said, so he sent another lawyer from his firm, Wayne Haig.
Haig asked the board for extra time so Ballengee could continue to gather explanations for the new issues. The board, however, felt that she had been given enough time.
Pageant spokesman Bud Oakey said that when the first questions were raised about Ballengee's listed achievements, he sat down with her and asked: "Is there anything else that can be misconstrued that we have to deal with?"
"She said no," Oakey said. "She's had since that time to deal with every single issue."
Ballengee said that four days after she was crowned she told Baker during a lunch engagement that she was on the waiting list at the law school.
"They knew on July 5 that I was an alternate to the University of Miami Law School," Ballengee stressed.
Baker, however, disputed that. "She did not say one word about being an alternate that day," he said
Bennett said the first time he was told Ballengee was only an alternate at the law school was almost a week later, on July 11.
That day, Ballengee said, she and Bennett were at lunch together when the Miami issue was brought up again. She said they went back to his office and called the school, requesting her status there.
Bennett said that they could not get confirmation that day. In fact, the information didn't arrive until Monday.
Ballengee claimed that by being placed on a waiting list, she would have eventually been accepted.
"It's almost like a football team," Ballengee said. "If you're an alternate on that team, you're still considered a part of the team."
Michael Goodnight, director of admissions at the University of Miami Law School, said being an alternate does not guarantee acceptance.
Goodnight said that 150 to 200 students are on the waiting list. At most, 30 to 40 of those are accepted, he said.
Those not accepted are not automatically put at the top of the list the next year, he said. Their names go back into the pool to be considered with other applicants.
This information set the stage for Thursday's board meeting.
When the board refused Ballengee's lawyer's request for more time, the members sent her and Haig out of the room to discuss it. They voted on the motion to take the crown away after giving her one more chance to resign.
At that point, Ballengee said, Haig advised her to step down. But after talking to her mother on the phone, Ballengee came back to the board room with her decision.
"My whole life is not Miss Virginia," Ballengee said from a friend's house in the Newport News area on Friday.
She said her next step is law school. Then someday she hopes to move into politics.
"Life goes on," she said.
by CNB