Beauty Contestant Says Pageant Standing Her Up : Contest: Runner-up needs prize money for law school, but organizers say she breached her contract.

The night Michelle Lloyd was named first runner-up in the 1990 Miss Orange Pageant was one of the high points of her life.

Severely overweight as a girl, Lloyd got in shape three years ago. Her low self-image was forever lifted when, at 24, she was awarded a prize in the local beauty contest.

But the memory of that evening has dimmed, and the honor has turned into a case for small claims court.

Last month, Lloyd filed a claim against the nonprofit beauty contest organization, which puts on pageants that are steppingstones to the Miss California and Miss America pageants, because she alleges that the Orange group refuses to pay her a $1,000 scholarship she was awarded as first runner-up.

“I was awarded that money and deserve to have it,” Lloyd said. “I worked damn hard for it.”

Pageant officials insist that Lloyd has breached her winner’s contract and forfeits the prize money. Winners are expected to attend city meetings, celebrations and parades during their one-year reign.

Sandy Hoadley, pageant board member, said Lloyd was contacted repeatedly after the pageant to attend various events but did not return phone calls from board members or fellow winners.

Lloyd also did not respond to letters from the pageant warning her that she could jeopardize her scholarship, Hoadley said.

“We just had no contact with her,” she said. “She refused our phone calls.”

In her six years with the pageant group, Hoadley said, she had never seen a winner break her contract.

But Lloyd said she did not participate in most events only because she was never notified about them.

She was contacted about and participated in one event, then never heard from contest representatives again until she received a letter in November, 1990, stating that the pageant board “may have no choice” but to find her in breach of her contract, she said.

Repeated calls to pageant representatives to clear up the confusion went unanswered, Lloyd said.

“I kept trying and trying, and when they didn’t return phone calls, I thought, ‘This will end up in a lawsuit,’ ” she said.

Lloyd said that she was a diligent contestant and that during more than five months that led up to the pageant, she participated in at least 25 pageant events, sometimes missing work to do so.

“I went out of my way to make sure I lived up to my obligations as a contestant,” she said.

“Somebody’s lying,” said attorney William L. Reinking, who was executive director of the pageant when Lloyd was selected. “The judge will have to decide who’s telling the truth.”

Lloyd said that she plans to begin at Western State University College of Law next week and that she needs her pageant winnings for tuition. She is seeking to collect the $1,000 scholarship, plus $1,000 in punitive damages.

The case will be heard 8 a.m. Wednesday in Orange County Municipal Court.