Scoring Mistakes Blemish Norwalk Beauty Pageants

NORWALK â€”  City officials say they have uncovered several mistakes in the scoring of a city-sponsored beauty pageant last month that resulted in the awarding of the Miss Teen Norwalk crown to the wrong contestant.

Officials also say the results of a second city-sponsored beauty pageant, Young Miss Norwalk, for girls ages 10 to 12, should be invalidated because additional mistakes were found in the scores of four of seven semifinalists. No errors were found in the main city-sponsored beauty contest, the Miss Norwalk Pageant, for girls and women ages 16 to 23 or in any of four other city-sponsored contests, officials said. The other four pageants are Little Miss Norwalk and Little Mister Norwalk, for girls and boys ages 6 to 9, and the Wee Miss Norwalk and Wee Mister Norwalk, for ages 3 to 5, officials said.

All seven contests were held Nov. 2 and were sponsored jointly by the city, the Chamber of Commerce and the Miss Norwalk Beauty Pageant Assn., a nonprofit group that administers the pageants.

Longtime Producer

The mistakes in totaling applicants’ scores were made by longtime pageant producer Eva Frederick, who said last week that she would award two first-place trophies in the Miss Teen Norwalk Pageant, for girls ages 12 to 15.

Despite some mothers’ charges of favoritism in the contests, the errors were honest mistakes, said Frederick, a former Miss Norwalk of 1962 who has produced the annual pageants as a volunteer since 1963. “I know I didn’t do anything dishonest. I don’t make a dime off the pageant. . . . I don’t want to hurt any of the children.�

The two Miss Teen Norwalk winners are Yasmin Macias, who was awarded the crown in the Nov. 2 contest but who placed second in a re-count, and Amy Muller, who originally finished third but won first place by three votes in a re-count. The re-counts were made by city and pageant officials after complaints by mothers of contestants.

Both Muller and Macias will be sent at city expense as Norwalk’s representatives in the annual Miss Teen California contest, Frederick said.

In the Young Miss Norwalk contest, however, Frederick has refused to invalidate the results. The first-place winner, Kasey Bedell, retains her title. Frederick said the errors were rectified in a re-count after which she decided to give an additional princess’ trophy to Zenia Braun, who finished fourth in the re-count, and transpose the second- and third-place finishers, giving Rachel Romero second place and Yvette Castellanos third place.

Says She Was Distracted

In an interview, Frederick said she was distracted by contestants’ mothers and a reporter for a local weekly newspaper while she was attempting to total the judges’ scores. She said she also did not wear her glasses while totaling the scores, which may have resulted in some errors.

Mothers of some of the contestants, however, were still angry and said they have talked with a lawyer about a possible lawsuit.

“They cheated innocent children,� charged Lillian Sierra, mother of Rachel Romero, 12 , who was awarded second in the Young Miss Norwalk re-count.

Sierra and other mothers of some contestants have charged that the errors may have been deliberate.

In the Miss Teen Norwalk pageant, errors benefited two contestants sponsored by Master Caterers and Eva Frederick Transportation, both owned by Frederick. Also, the Young Miss pageant was won by the daughter of Sheron Bedell, an employee of Master Caterers, Frederick said. Bedell also is treasurer of the Miss Norwalk Beauty Pageant Assn.

$200 Reimbursement Sought

Sierra wants Frederick to reimburse her for the $200 that she spent preparing her daughter for the pageant. The expenses were for a formal turquoise gown, high-heel shoes, nylons, a baby’s breath tiara and a hair styling.

Frederick has refused, saying she doesn’t have enough money to reimburse mothers for expenses.

City officials who met with Frederick and disgruntled mothers in a two-hour meeting last Thursday said they would continue to press Frederick to invalidate the results of the Young Miss Norwalk contest and refund the $10 entry fees to all 15 contestants.

“As a city we are going to do whatever we can to clean this up,� said Assistant City Administrator Charles Rough. “We are still dissatisfied. We just don’t think the (Young Miss Norwalk) contest is credible.�

“If we had some tar and feathers, we could have settled the whole matter,� Mark Steres, assistant city attorney, said smiling, referring to Frederick.

Reforms Favored

Chamber of Commerce President Larry Briggs, however, sided with Frederick, saying he believed the Young Miss Norwalk pageant should not be invalidated because the recount rectified mistakes.

But Briggs said he favored pageant reforms because “we recognize that there were some errors in the tabulating.�

The city contributed $4,000 to the pageant this year and also provided camera crews that televised the pageant live over the city’s cable television station. For the city to continue financial support of the pageant, officials have recommended new policies that prohibit officials of the Norwalk Beauty Pageant Assn. from sponsoring contestants or entering relatives. The recommended policies also call for the hiring of an accounting firm to tabulate and certify pageant scores.

Other officials said that despite this year’s problems, the city would continue to sponsor the event, with Frederick as producer.

‘Never Had Problems’

“The pageant’s been going on for years and we never had any problems with it. She must be doing something right,� Mayor Marcial Rodriguez said.

Meanwhile, there was little satisfaction for Amy Muller, now 16, who was notified last week that she should have been crowned Miss Teen Norwalk of 1986 instead of finishing third.

In an interview, Muller recalled standing in front of a capacity crowd in the Excelsior High School auditorium in her peach taffeta dress, thinking to herself that she should have done better when the winners were announced.

“I felt kind of angry that they did that. . . . It’s gone. That moment’s gone. It can’t come again.�