Anyone can be stopped for drunk driving, and thousands of people from Florida to Minnesota and everywhere in between are pulled over and arrested after they made the mistake of getting behind the wheel drunk. Just read the news every day and you’ll see that getting stopped for drunk driving isn’t something that just happens to teenagers or middle age men. It happens to moms, grandparents, and beauty queens too.
Case in point? Miss Washington USA, Stormy Keffeler, has recently resigned her crown after pageant officials found out she was convicted of drunk driving one month before she won the title. The night she was stopped by police she had two flat tires, was slurring her speech and, when asked to submit to a breathalyzer, had a blood alcohol concentration of .22.
When organizers found out about the arrest and that she didn’t disclose it, she made the decision to step down. Although some people on social media are calling the decision unfair, the bottom line is that a pageant winner is a representative and a role model, and with a DUI on record, she’s not setting a great example for anyone.
Miss Washington isn’t the first person to resign a crown over DUI. Miss Nevada USA, Emelina Adams, also has a DUI on her record. She received her misdemeanor DUI in Las Vegas after she was parked in a hotel garage during a pool party. After deciding to sleep in her car with the air conditioning on instead of driving home, she found out that act is illegal in Nevada. You can’t be in a parked vehicle with the keys in the ignition because it shows the intent to drive. Unlike Miss Washington, because Miss Nevada’s DUI happened years before she received her crown, it has no affect on her ability to keep it.
Two different beauty pageant winners and two different DUIs, but the message is the same: with so much at stake, once you make the mistake of drinking and driving, it can have long term impact on your life. No matter who you are, if you drink, don’t drive.