Miss Virginia’s Crown Taken Back

Organizers of the Miss Virginia pageant took away the winner’s title today, two weeks after she was accused of embellishing her credentials.

Andrea Ballengee refused to resign, pageant spokesman Bud Oakey said.

“We’re taking her crown,” he said, refusing to comment further on what prompted pageant officials to end her reign.

Ballengee’s most recent telephone number was disconnected and she could not be located.

“She was very upset,” her mother, Pat Ballengee, said from her home in Jupiter, Fla. “It was a surprise this morning.”

Pat Ballengee said her daughter did not tell her what had prompted the pageant’s action.

Ballengee won the Miss Virginia Pageant on July 1. Within a week, officials from Virginia Tech and Tabb High School in Yorktown claimed she had listed on her pageant resume high honors she never received.

For example, she wrote on a pageant form that she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a national academic honorary society, but the chairman of the Virginia Tech Phi Beta Kappa membership board said her grade average “wasn’t anywhere close.”