It turns out that Miss Teen South Carolina, 18-year-old Lauren Caitlin Upton, who has made national headlines in the past 48 hours for her meltdown on national television during Friday night’s Miss Teen USA pageant, attended one of the state’s finest schools.

A reader has pointed out that Lexington High School, Upton’s alma-mater, was the winner of the 2007 Carolina First Palmetto’s Finest Award, given to the top public school in the state. The annual recognition is handed out by the SC Association of School Administrators to a school “which offers excellent instruction and outstanding leaders, augmented by strong family and community involvement and a supportive business community.”

And that “excellence” was on fine display over the weekend. Aye-yay-yay.

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UPDATE: The YouTube video, originally posted at D-Listed on Saturday, has already been viewed more than 2.35 million times. Here’s a complete transcription of her “answer” courtesy of VH1:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.