Eleven-year-old claims to be winner of Hairoun ‘Pimp Ride’

Kenisha Hannaway believes that she is the rightful winner of the St. Vincent Brewery “Pimp My Hairoun Ride” Dodge Ram 4×4 pickup truck, but she will not know until at least next Tuesday whether she will be able to take possession.

The main issue delaying the granting of the prize to the 11-year-old primary school student is the fact that she wrote only her name on the competition entry form she sent in to accompany the required six Hairoun bottle caps, and did not attach a telephone number or address.{{more}}

Kenisha’s mother, Salome Hannaway is claiming that she is being discriminated against. In an interview with the Searchlight Newspaper, Salome said that after she was told by friends that her daughter won the vehicle in a draw on Sunday, January 8, 2006, she ventured to the Brewery the next day with Kenisha only to have the Sales and Marketing Manager of the Brewery, Wayne Murphy “snub her”.

Salome said that she told Murphy that her daughter had won the prize only to have him ignore her and not concede that she was indeed the winner.

The Paul’s Avenue resident alleged that because she was poor Murphy ignored her and that she was extremely upset by this. The mother of five said that she would like to have the vehicle so that she could sell it and use the proceeds to provide for her child who would be writing the Common Entrance exam next year. But 11-year-old Kenisha said that she would instead buy a house and put the rest of the money in the bank.

Asked how she got the bottle caps to enter the competition Kenisha replied,

“When mommy drink the beer I would get the corks and put them in envelopes and drop them by Mrs. Weekes.”

Asked also why she didn’t include her address on the entry form, the Peter’s Vale student shrugged her shoulders, gave a shy smile and put her head on her mother’s shoulder.

Murphy however in an interview discredits claims that he discriminated against Hannaway but instead wanted to be fair to the other 45,000 entrants of the competition. He said that on the night of the draw, five names were picked so that if one person was disqualified the next person could get the grand prize Dodge Ram 4×4 pickup truck.

The Sales and Marketing Manager stressed that of the 45,000 entries, the name ‘Kenisha Hannaway’ was the second name pulled but the paper had neither address nor telephone number on the entry. He said this made it difficult to determine if the 11-year-old was truly the person who had submitted the entry. Murphy however added that a meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, January 17, 2005 with the Gaming Commission to help settle the matter.