Secretary of State Mark Hammond said his office, which regulates nonprofits, is reviewing the pageant's annual reports after receiving complaints earlier this year.

Gail Sanders, comptroller for the nonprofit, said all contestants sign off on disbursement rules and are told several times how scholarships are awarded.

Those include Ashley Wood, Miss South Carolina 2004, who said she's tried unsuccessfully for months to collect more than $20,000 she won through the pageant.

"The amount of scholarship I was awarded was included in press releases and appearance introductions throughout the year of my reign," Wood told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal by e-mail.

Sanders said Wood never applied for scholarship money. "If contestants don't receive funds, it's because they failed to complete the paperwork or they did not complete the paperwork correctly, or they forfeited because they did not request it in a timely manner."

"Each time I have submitted the requested material, I am told that something else needs to be submitted which I had not previously been told to do," she said.

Carrie Cousar, Miss South Carolina 1992, filed a lawsuit against the pageant after she failed to receive her money. She said pageant organizers signed a contract that she could use winnings to repay students loans, since she had already received her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. But when she asked for her scholarship money, "they basically said it could only be used for future educational purposes," she said.

Brooke Bailey, Miss Union 2004, said it took nine months of paperwork and pushing to receive her $500 scholarship. She said she initially was told she didn't qualify for the money because her father already had paid for her upcoming semester at Winthrop. But if she'd waited for the pageant funds, the school would have canceled her registration, she said.

Tiffany Haney, a four-time contestant from 2001 to 2004 who twice placed in the top 10, used her thousands of dollars in winnings to help pay for her Clemson education.

"The paperwork is very thorough," she said. "There's a lot to it, and I'm not going to say that they make it easy to get your scholarship, but if you follow those rules, like I did, I never had a problem getting the scholarships."

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