THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 25, 1995 TAG: 9507250308
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY BISHOP, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
It's Amber Medlin's turn to prove she deserves to be Miss Virginia.
Within an hour after Thursday's dethroning of Andrea Ballengee, runner-up Medlin was hustling to leave her job as a sales clerk and sometime sandwich-maker at the P.J. Baggan Wine Cafe at the Beach, a gourmet wine shop and coffee house in Virginia Beach.
``Margaret called me a little while ago,'' Medlin said at lunchtime, referring to Margaret Baker, executive director of the Miss Virginia pageant.
The news was, Medlin probably will be the next Miss Virginia - barring any problems like inaccuracies on the contest questionnaire she filled out in May.
Medlin, 23, Miss Virginia Beach, needed to leave work and gather records substantiating all the achievements she listed. She'd be rounding up letters confirming she's in Alpha Epsilon Rho, a national radio-television honor society, for instance, and documentation of her music awards.
``Proof,'' she called it.
Pageant board member Harlen Gudger confirmed that Medlin's background is being checked out. ``We certainly can't confirm her until we check out all her qualifications,'' he said, ``but we are in the process of doing that now. We expect that it will all check out and that she'll be confirmed as soon as possible."
Medlin, like Ballengee, is a pageant veteran. She was fourth runner-up in last year's contest, and her questionnaire says she was among the 10 finalists in 1993.
Her boss at the wine and coffee shop said it was in the middle of lunch Thursday that Medlin got the news that she might be giving up restaurant work for something a bit more glamorous. ``We turned on the TV and she started crying,'' shop owner P.J. Daly said.
He said it's unlikely anyone will find discrepancies in Medlin's records.
``The only thing (is), she probably understated her grade average because she couldn't average it,'' Daly said. ``She's a little girl who cares a lot about her job and what other people think about her. She's really a nice person.''
Medlin listed a 3.0 grade point average at Radford University. Citing privacy laws on student records, Radford spokeswoman Deborah Brown wouldn't comment on Medlin's grades, but she confirmed that Medlin graduated in 1994 with a major in speech communications and a concentration in broadcast journalism.
Brown also confirmed that, as Medlin stated on the questionnaire, she was a member of Alpha Epsilon Rho and taught music in the Radford Community Arts School.
A 1990 graduate of Cox High School in Virginia Beach, she said she received an advanced studies diploma and won ``cum laude'' honors in national Latin exams while there. She said she was Miss Cox High School in 1989, a cheerleader, Neptune Princess, a homecoming court member, executive council member and ``Pres./VP of my classes.'' A guidance supervisor at Cox High said the school could divulge no information about former students except to say that Medlin graduated from there.
Medlin said she wants to be a hospital administrator or medical journalist.
She is expected to arrive in Roanoke today to meet with pageant officials. MEMO: Roanoke Times staff writer F.J. Gallagher contributed to this story.
by CNB