Is Miss Washington A Bad Apple?

SPOKANE — Playing beer pong, drinking rum and giving a one-finger salute to the camera might be something you might see from a college party photo collection. But what happens when the person in the photo is Miss Washington 2007?

Popular entertainment website TMZ.com has posted photos on its site
of Miss Washington 2007 Elyse Umemoto playing beer pong, drinking rum, giving the camera a one-finger salute and making sexually suggested poses … in some pictures wearing her crown.

Umemoto, a native of Wapato and Pacific Lutheran University graduate, had a platform of “Embracing Diversity, Empowering Women”, though in the pictures posted to TMZ.com Umemoto was shown embracing and toasting friends with a shotglass in hand.

Michael Miller, the field director of the Miss Washington pageant, called the revelation of the photos of Umemoto as a non-story yet found the time to send a lengthy press release to TMZ.com.

“We will trust the legitimate media to be skilled enough at their jobs to realize that there is no story here and move on to real news that matters to the public welfare,” Miller wrote in his letter to TMZ.

You can read the full letter on TMZ.com
.

Miller took the extra step of playing down the pictures of the woman who was the second runner-up in this year’s Miss America pageant by slinging some Shakespeare, saying that this was “Much ado about nothing.”

And to further emphasize this was not a story, at a press conference called for hours after TMZ.com broke the story  Elyse Umemoto apologized for the pictures.

Umemoto says the pictures were taken in a private setting and that her trust was violated. She says she was clowning around when the pictures were taken. Miller says Umemoto will not be disciplined for the photos.

You can read more about Miss Washington Elyse Umemoto at
her blog
as well as on the
Miss Washington
website. Also below you can watch video from YouTube of Umemoto being crowned as Miss Washington 2007.