Miss 4th of July vote miscount causing ‘heartache and distress’

WINSLOW, Maine (AP) — One winner of a teenage Miss 4th of July pageant is upset. The other agreed to share the title but isn’t talking. And the pageant organizer is defending herself from accusations she rigged the results.

Molly Lybrook, 17, of Fairfield, said she won the Winslow Miss 4th of July Pageant on Saturday. But organizers discovered votes had been miscounted and declared Caitlin Grenier, 14, of Winslow, the winner.

As a compromise, organizers said both teenagers would be crowned winners.

The Morning Sentinel reported that Lybrook believes organizer Leah Frost influenced the results. She said Grenier and Frost’s sister are friends.

“This is somebody else’s mistake,” Lybrook said. “I won fair and square, and if it truly was a mistake, then I’m sorry, but that’s something the person who made the mistake has to pay for, not me — the winner.”

Frost said she had nothing to do with the scoring and sent Lybrook copies of the judges’ sheets to show the mistake. She said she hoped the dual queens would allow both girls to be recognized.

“I’m just trying to do what’s fair to both girls because they both worked equally hard for it,” she said.

Grenier declined to be interviewed by the newspaper.

The pageant precedes the Winslow Family 4th of July Celebration, which is one of the biggest Independence Day events in the state. The four-day event started Wednesday.