Queengate Cover-Up

Ballot burning robs a student of her title but brings down a principal

UNMARRIED AND FIVE MONTHS PREGNANT, SPORTING a punk look of dyed red hair, metal bracelets and black fingernails, April Schuldt did not fit the conventional image of a high school homecoming queen. Nonetheless, she won the ) student election at Memorial High School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and thus seemed to have every right to the title. But school officials didn't see it that way; they denied the 17-year-old her crown and named the runner-up, pert and clean-cut Elizabeth Weld, as winner. Last week Eau Claire District superintendent Lee Hansen exposed a plot by principal Charles Zielin and three assistant principals...

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