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| Heather Whitestone at age 39 |
Born on February 24 1973, Heather Whitestone lost her hearing due to a childhood illness when she was 18 months old. During her early years, while aware of her impairment, she did not regard herself as deaf. Instead, as she writes in her memoir, she was just Heather.
If anything, she felt her hearing loss gave her a degree of freedom. Able to hear to a small degree with the help of a hearing aid, she could shut out aggravating noises with the flip of a switch. Once, while on a family vacation, her sister groused about the loudness of their dad’s snoring. Heather simply switched off her hearing aid and relaxed into peaceful sleep.
Beginning ballet classes as a child, she found she had a natural grace and ease in movement. As her proficiency grew, so did her self-assurance. Like any art, ballet requires intensive practice and self-discipline. Eventually, Heather felt the urge to enter beauty contests in which talent was a crucial component. Having succeeded in becoming Miss Alabama in 1994, the combination of her lovely face, lithe body and balletic skill led her to become, in 1995, Miss America.
Predictably, when a member of any minority is rewarded for excellence, there are those who try to undermine them by attributing victory to condescension. At times, Heather felt overwhelmed by the constant drone of the word “disability”, shadowing her to the point where it felt like a cave from which there was no escape.
One especially insensitive woman with a camera in one hand and a duck in the other, approached Ms. Whitestone to say, since her duck was deaf, she would like a photograph of him with the first deaf Miss America. Still, Heather’s sense of inner balance allowed her to stay centered upon the validity of her success, and the positivity she could generate to others who are marginalized by society.
In time, she met John McCallum, an aide to Congressman Newt Gingrich. As Christianity is one of the cornerstones of Heather’s life, it was vital for her to ascertain straight-away whether this young man who evoked tender feelings shared her beliefs. Hence, during their first dinner together, she asked him directly if he was a Christian. When he said he was, she asked what had motivated him to become one. His answer felt honest and genuine. By the end of that evening, she no longer wondered whether he had asked her for this date in order to boast of having gone out with a former Miss America. In time, their initial mutual liking evolved into love, resulting in marriage and three children.
A cochlear implant has greatly helped Heather’s ability both to hear and communicate. In this book, she conveys her individual and Christian principles for ongoing inner contentment and towards outward achievement.
Having herself faced bigotry and discrimination; she now works as a motivational speaker, and is active on various political committees to make employment for people with disabilities truly equal, rather than theoretical, as it often is now. In this memoir, she recounts her experiences with candor, ending with a sense of uplift and encouragement.
