Mother Lied To Win Hannah Montana Contest

GARLAND, Texas - A North Texas mother made up a tragic story about a father dying in Iraq for an essay contest to win a Hannah Montana prize package.

But the company decided not to award Priscilla Ceballos' daughter with the contest's grand prize, Club Libby Lu CEO Mary Drolet said Saturday in a wr"After awarding the grand prize, we unfortunately learned that the statements made in the essay were untrue," she said in the statement. "Club Libby Lu greatly values honestly and integrity. In order to uphold these values, we have decided to withdraw the award initially given to the Ceballos family."

On Friday, Ceballos told NBC 5 by telephone that it was a big misunderstanding. She said she made up the story to win the contest. No one asked her if the story was true, she said.

Her daughter had beat out more than 1,000 other Hannah Montana fans with the essay she wrote for the Club Libby Lu "Hannah Montana Rock Your Holidays Essay Contest."

"My daddy died this year in Iraq," the little girl wrote in the essay. "I am going to give mommy the Angel pendant that daddy put on mommy when she was having me. I had it in my jewelry box since that day. I love my mommy."

Ceballos told contest organizers her husband was killed April 17, 2007, while serving in Iraq.

Research done by NBC 5 revealed that only one U.S. soldier died on April 17 of this year, and it was not Jonathan Menjivar. Neighbors said the girl's father, a carpet cleaner, is alive and is not a soldier.

The mother's sister said the story was intended to be a Christmas story.
"It was supposed to be told like a Christmas story, a good Christmas story, basically," she said. "And that's what she wrote, a Christmas story. But she didn't know it had to be true or anything."

One neighbor said she couldn't imagine anyone making something like that up, calling it "shocking."

"It's wrong," the neighbor's daughter said. "It's really wrong."

The contest's grand prize was a Hannah Montana makeover inside Club Libby Lu, tickets to Hannah Montana's sold-out concert in Albany, N.Y., in January, airfare and accommodations to the show and a Hannah Montana gift bag.

Club Libby Lu, a sort of salon for tweens, sponsored the contest and invited reporters to a party for Ceballos' daughter on Friday. When the child was asked about the essay that made her dream come true, her mother responded by saying: "We don't really want to talk about that ... OK?"

Shortly after that, Ceballos took her daughter and quickly left the store.

On Friday, Club Libby Lu's public relations firm said it had no reason to believe the information in the essay was false.

In a statement released late Friday, Drolet said: "Club Libby Lu has learned the essay submitted under the name Alexis Menjivar in the Club Libby Lu "Hannah Montana Rock Your Holidays Essay Contest" is untrue. We are reviewing the facts in the matter so that we may determine an appropriate resolution to the situation. Club Libby Lu had no knowledge of the inaccuracies in the essay until 2:45 this afternoon - Friday, December 28. 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."'

The company said it is awarding the grand prize to another contest winner. Club Libby Lu said it would not disclose the name of the new winner to protect the family's privacy.