Welp, this is awkward.
Right on the heels of Miss Delaware Amanda Longacre losing her crown because she had been deemed too old, another pageant mishap has also ended up in a revoked crown. Last Saturday, Elizabeth Fechtel was named Miss Florida 2014 (you’ll get ’em next time Florida Woman), but less than a week later she was informed that there was a miscalculation. Fechtel did not win. She was actually the runner up. Oops.
Apparently, a pageant judge had a change of heart regarding who should take home the title in the last 15 seconds of the allotted decision time and (I’m assuming in a panic) “drew lines on his ballot to reverse his vote.” His edits were not noticed at first (duh. he should have drawn a bunch of stars and exclamation points), but a “subsequent independent audit” showed that Fechtel was not in fact the rightful winner. The Miss Florida title actually belonged to 1st runner up Victoria Cowen. So congratulations to Victoria I guess! (?) Awkward.
According to Orlando Sentinel, Fechtel’s mother said Elizabeth was to take the year off from school to prepare for the Miss America competition:
“We were disappointed that she wasn’t notified earlier because it was required for her to not be in school and college. So she had to drop all her classes this week.”
Harsh. On top of that, Fechtel will have to forfeit her scholarship winnings to Cowen. Obviously the Miss America Organization feels bad about the whole Florida scenario and also about what happened in Delaware. They posted a pretty serious apology on the organization’s Facebook:
So much has been going on in pageantry this weekend that we haven’t really gotten a minute to send our thoughts to Elizabeth Fechtel and Amanda Longacre.
…
We would like to send our thoughts and our prayers out to these young women. We can’t even imagine what you’re going through. We know you both have very bright futures ahead of you. To Brittany (the new Miss DE) and Victoria (the new Miss FL), thank you for stepping in so graciously and suddenly. Please send your thoughts and prayers to Elizabeth, Amanda, Brittany, and Victoria.
As of right now, the Miss Florida website has yet to be updated with the correct results, but I’m sure they’ll get around to it. But jeez, two revoked crowns? COME ON MISS AMERICA, GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME.
Screenshots via MissFlorida.org.