A Carroll High School graduate had to give up her bid Thursday for the Miss America pageant after questions about her residency in Oregon.
Rachel Berry, 24, was crowned Miss Oregon on June 31 but has agreed to relinquish the title.
Pageant director Dana Phillips says Berry couldn’t prove she had lived in Oregon long enough to qualify for the title. She previously lived in California, where she had attended Chapman University in Orange, her mother, Beth Berry, previously told The News-Sentinel.
To compete for Miss America is a dream I have worked toward since I was young, but I accept this decision to do the right thing and relinquish this title," Berry said in a statement. "
Pageant rules require contestants to live in Oregon for six months before competing in a local preliminary competition.
Phillips, the pageant director, told the station Berry provided a lease for a home outside Portland signed Jan. 1, 2012 — less than four months before the preliminary contest that crowned her Miss Willamette Valley in April.
Berry denied wrongdoing.
The Miss America competition will be held Jan. 12 in Las Vegas.
