Club Libby Lu withdraws prize from girl whose essay was untrue
GARLAND, Texas — A 6-year-old girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay that falsely claimed her father died in Iraq won't be going to the show after all.
The contest's sponsor, Club Libby Lu, withdrew the prize on Saturday and awarded it to another unnamed winner.
"With this decision, we hope to revive the intended spirit of the contest, which was designed to make a little girl's holidays extra special," Club Libby Lu chief executive Mary Drolet said in a statement Saturday.
Officials with the Chicago-based chain surprised the girl on Friday at a Club Libby Lu store in a suburban Dallas mall. Club Libby Lu sells clothes, accessories and games for young girls.
The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, N.Y., and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on Jan. 9.
The opening line in the essay was: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."
But the girl's mother, Priscilla Ceballos, admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter's father were untrue.
Ceballos had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said.
She identified the soldier as Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar, but the Department of Defense has no record of anyone with that name dying in Iraq.
"We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win," Ceballos said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW on Friday. "But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said, `No, this essay is not true.'"
The Associated Press was unable to find a phone number for Ceballos on Saturday.
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December 29, 2007 - 2:15 p.m. CST
Copyright 2007, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press
What's really sad about this is the fact that the mother wrote the essay - I watched a video and you should just watch the mom squirm now that she's been totally busted...I wonder, if years down the road, the mother will prompt the child to write a memoir about it. It will only sell if, years later, this little girl has become some crack-addicted mother of 40 who still wears the Hannah Montanna wig and blames her mom and the too-nosey media for ruining her childhood. It will be called The Worst of Both Worlds (which is an inside joke for all Montana fans...)
Frankly, I think that Miley Cyrus reminds me of friggin' Elaine Stritch..
Seperated at birth? You tell me...
think of this as the Hannah Montana of the far flung future...
scary, I know...
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