At 24, Miss Delaware Is Too Old, Say Officials

Yet another beauty pageant scandal: Less than two weeks after Amanda Longacre was crowned Miss Delaware, she's been stripped of the title because pageant officials say she's too old. Longacre is 24, and will still be 24 when the Miss America pageant is held in September—and she says she was told that as long as she was 24 during the Miss America competition, her age was not an issue. But officials now say that according to the fine print, Miss America can't turn 25 any time in 2014; Longacre's birthday is in October, the Smyrna-Clayton Sun-Times explains. Longacre had no trouble while competing on the local level, and when she advanced to the state level, she says her age and birthday were clearly stated on her contract, which the Miss Delaware Scholarship Organization signed, she tells NBC Philadelphia.

The organization verified her birth certificate, license, and social security card before the competition. A media relations coordinator for the Miss Delaware organization even confirms that Longacre didn't do anything wrong, and calls the whole thing "a terrible mistake." After being told on Tuesday she'd be losing her title (plus prizes including $11,000 in scholarship money), Longacre says officials have been "ignoring" her. Making things worse: She had deferred her master's program and her Department of Justice internship for a year so that she could fulfill her Miss Delaware duties. Runner-up Brittany Lewis was crowned the new Miss Delaware last night, MyFox Philly reports. (More Miss America stories.)