THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507210527
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 139 lines
For reasons they refuse to discuss, Miss Virginia pageant officials dumped a Newport News woman as their queen Thursday, visiting her apartment to confiscate the rhinestone-studded crown she'd won less than three weeks before.
This morning, a Virginia Beach woman is the likely choice to take her place.
Andrea Ballengee, 21, was stripped of her title by unanimous vote of the pageant's board of directors. Two weeks before, the same people had voiced their support for her in the face of allegations that she had padded her resume.
Her ouster came with the appearance of mysterious, ``additional facts'' that, when combined with the earlier allegations, made it impossible for her to continue as Miss Virginia, contest organizers said.
They offered no further explanation for her removal, the first such action in the pageant's 42-year history. ``It wouldn't be fair to her,'' pageant spokesman Bud Oakey said. ``It wouldn't be fair to the pageant. We have to move on to better days.''
Within hours of the board's morning vote, a pageant director had reclaimed the 1995 Chevy Camaro that Ballengee was to enjoy for her year's reign, and left her apartment with a plastic bag concealing the tiara she won after three years as a runner-up.
By midafternoon, Ballengee's friends were moving belongings out of her southwest Roanoke apartment, another prize she won at the July 1 pageant.
``We're totally shocked,'' Ballengee's mother, Pat, said from her home in Jupiter, Fla. ``For the past 21 days they've said they supported her 100 percent. For them to do this to her, we're just devastated. We're very hurt. We just don't understand it.''
In Virginia Beach, Ballengee's first runner-up was making cappuccino and sandwiches behind the counter at P.J. Baggan, a Laskin Road coffee house, when she received word from pageant officials to pack her bags.
Amber Medlin, 23, is to leave Hampton Roads this morning to meet with Margaret Baker, the pageant's executive director, at the organization's Roanoke headquarters.
``My boss said, `Telephone. It's your mom.' And it was Mrs. Baker, from the pageant,'' Medlin said Thursday night. ``She just let me know that they had taken Andrea's crown this morning at a meeting.''
Baker made it clear that Medlin's second-place finish did not guarantee her the crown. ``It was nothing definite,'' Medlin said. ``It still isn't. I don't know anything about what's going to happen when I get there. The director just told me to meet her tomorrow.''
Ballengee's brief reign, won after three years in which she placed in the pageant's top 10, was rocky.
The former Tabb High School cheerleader and Virginia Tech graduate had worn the crown for four days when pageant bosses learned that she had put too bright a shine on some accomplishments.
On her resume, she had won membership in Phi Beta Kappa, an esteemed honor society. She had graduated magna cum laude from Tech. She had received highest honors on her graduation from Tabb and had been selected the high school's Most Outstanding Female Athlete.
In reality, she had done none of those things: At Tech, she'd graduated cum laude. She'd been recognized as a superachiever at Tabb but had not achieved highest academic honors. And she had been picked the school's top cheerleader, not athlete.
Miss Virginia organizers investigated. On July 6, satisfied with Ballengee's explanation that the discrepancies were unintentional, Baker announced that the pageant was ``behind her 100 percent.''
``In fact, Margaret Baker even sat down with her and helped her complete her fact sheet for the Miss America pageant,'' Pat Ballengee said. ``Andrea was completely honest with them and up-front from July 5 on.
``They told Andrea just to let it blow over. . . . They didn't want her talking to the media.''
Then came Wednesday. Pageant officials called her, told her the board sought her resignation, and asked her to appear before the panel the next morning.
She found all but one or two of the 20 directors waiting for her when she arrived with a Roanoke lawyer, Wayne Haig, at 8 a.m.
Ballengee told her mother that she tried to present evidence on her own behalf, but found that ``board members wouldn't even look at her.'' When she refused to hand over the crown, the directors voted unanimously to take it from her.
In addition to forgoing a shot at the Miss America title Sept. 16, Ballengee was forced to return most of her prizes. She will keep a $7,500 ``non-forfeitable'' scholarship.
``We just wanted some time to address some of the things that were being said,'' Haig said Thursday night. ``Evidently, they had already made the decision.''
During a late-morning news conference, pageant president Robert Bennett would say only that the board learned of ``new facts'' that prompted members to ``reconsider Miss Ballengee's ability to represent the Miss Virginia Scholarship Pageant.''
``There has been a new issue that has been brought to the full board's attention,'' Baker, the executive director, said, adding that it was ``not in either her best interest or our best interest to discuss those issues. It was a combination leading up to this point, with additional facts being presented and a specific issue.''
Haig declined to discuss that ``specific issue'' in detail but acknowledged it was related to Ballengee's claims about her past. ``She feels she can justify everything she's said about herself,'' he said.
A Roanoke TV station, WDBJ-TV, reported Thursday that pageant officials had learned that Ballengee, who had billed herself as a first-year law student, had not been accepted to the University of Miami law school.
Ballengee's mother does not understand what changed the board's mind. ``It's just not fair,'' she said. ``This is a good kid. She's worked five years for this.
``Andrea's believed in this pageant and what it represents for so long. I've believed in it. . . . I just don't believe in it anymore.''
Medlin, 23, had put this year's pageant behind her, as she had after failing to achieve the crown on two previous tries. ``We thought it was all over,'' her roommate, Nicole Marcoccio, said.
She was ready to compete a fourth time for the crown, however: Like Ballengee, the graduate of Cox High School and Radford University has placed high in past competitions. In 1994, Ballengee was third runner-up, Medlin fourth.
Medlin said she is ``very excited,'' though she won't learn whether she is the new Miss Virginia until pageant officials thoroughly examine her transcripts and other records, a process that spokesman Oakey said should be completed within a week.
``I honestly feel sorry for her,'' Medlin said of Ballengee, whom she has known for years. ``I don't know what to think. It's really hard for me to believe, because I told her at the breakfast after Miss Virginia that I was proud of her and happy for her.
``I knew she'd worked so hard.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
STAFF
Amber Medlin of Virginia Beach will meet with pageant officials
today in Roanoke.
Andrea Ballengee wouldn't concede her title. So pageant officials
went to her apartment Thursday and took her crown, in a plastic
bag.
KEYWORDS: MISS VIRGINIA PAGEANT WINNER by CNB