I can't believe this..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_en_...lBmuNheQadxFb8C



Girl wins concert tickets with essay faking dad's death in Iraq

GARLAND, Texas (AP) -- An essay that won a 6-year-old girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."

While gripping, it wasn't true -- and now the girl may lose her tickets after her mom acknowledged to contest organizers it was all a lie.

The sponsor of the contest was Club Libby Lu, a Chicago-based store that sells clothes, accessories and games intended for young girls.

The saga began Friday with company officials surprising the girl at a Club Libby Lu at a mall in suburban Garland, northeast of Dallas. The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, New York, and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on January 9.

The mother had told company officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said.

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win," Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. "We did whatever we could do to win."

She had identified the soldier as Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar, but the Department of Defense has no record of anyone with that name dying in Iraq. Caulfield said the mother has admitted to the deception. VideoWatch a reporter confront the mother »

"We regret that the original intent of the contest, which was to make a little girl's holiday extra special, has not been realized in the way we anticipated," said Mary Drolet, the CEO of Club Libby Lu.

Drolet said the company is reviewing the matter, and is considering taking away the girl's tickets.

That is just awful! It's just sick to see what some people will do to get what they want!

my grandma was talking about that today, their kid is 6 they dont need to go to a concert that badly

I can't think of anybody who deserves to go LESS. That mother is SICK.

This post has been edited by Bellasmommy10 on Dec 29 2007, 05:23 PM

Yeah, it's sick.........

....but it's an essay. Nobody ever said an essay has to be non-fiction...?

They took away her tickets, so apparently someone else thinks it's horrid as well.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/5410390.html

That's kind of dumb. I would fight that. They never said it was true to begin with.

Seems like she played it off to be real when they questioned her and then when they did a little digging, she changed her story.


"The mother had told company officials that the girl’s father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said."

http://www.koin.com/Global/story.asp?S=7554667

Ah. That's what I get when I just skim through the article...

yeah if she played it off as real, totally wrong, and she deserves to have the tickets taken away.

I feel sorry for the 6 year old girl, but not because she lost the tickets. I feel sorry for her because she has a mother that thinks it's ok to lie about something like that in order to win tickets. What a lesson to teach your child.

Yeah, it's all over the news down here. Awful, huh? ITA with Dee Dee

No kidding!

And I personally find it repulsive that they would use such a sensitive issue as the basis for the lying It's a slap in the face to the children who HAVE lost a parent in the war

This is exactly what I was talking about in another thread. If parents don't draw the line on morals and right and wrong, how can we expect our kids to get it? We're raising a society that is teaching that winning is the name of the game and how you get there doesn't matter. I feel badly for the six year-old too. She has a bleak future. Her mother is a scumbag.

that is exactly what I was thinking
It's the mother teaching her daughter to do something wrong and dishonest. What a sad story to make up just to go see Hannah Montana...when there are many kids out there who have lost their parent/loved one

You know what else, what happened to teaching your kids to be a good sport? Like, "You wrote a great essay but someone else won, good for them?"

Clearly her morals are a little...

um distorted?

This is exactly what I was talking about in another thread. If parents don't draw the line on morals and right and wrong, how can we expect our kids to get it? We're raising a society that is teaching that winning is the name of the game and how you get there doesn't matter. I feel badly for the six year-old too. She has a bleak future. Her mother is a scumbag.

Yes I agree

What a horrible thing to do.

No kidding!

And I personally find it repulsive that they would use such a sensitive issue as the basis for the lying It's a slap in the face to the children who HAVE lost a parent in the war

Couldn't have said it better myself, this is exactly what I was thinking! How sad!