| Beauty pageant titleholder | |
| Born | Heather Leigh Whitestone February 24, 1973 Dothan, Alabama |
|---|---|
| Title(s) | Miss Alabama 1994 Miss America 1995 |
| Major competition(s) |
Miss America 1995 (winner) |
Heather Leigh Whitestone McCallum (born February 24, 1973 in Dothan, Alabama) is a former beauty queen who was the first deaf Miss America title holder, having lost most of her hearing at the age of 18 months.
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Heather Whitestone was born and raised in Dothan for the first seven years of her life. She lost her hearing when she was only 18 months old. She had haemophilus influenzae and was rushed to the hospital hours away from death. In order to save her life, doctors gave her strong antibiotics which left her with a profound hearing loss. Her mother, Daphne Gray, discovered her Deafness. She had dropped pans on the kitchen floor and Heather did not respond. She had a 120 decibel hearing loss in her right ear and a 90 decibel loss in her left ear. Heather's mom, Daphne, decided that her daughter would read lips and learn to speak instead of learning sign language. Heather commented in her book, "Today's Heroes", that she was criticized in the Deaf community for the decision not to learn sign language. She has since learned the language.
In fourth grade, Heather learned about the story of a young woman from Alabama who would forever change her life — Helen Keller. Keller became Heather's role model. Heather was unable to keep up with her classwork and began to fall behind her peers. At eleven years old, Heather asked her family to send her to a special school that would enable her to catch up with other students in her class. While at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri, Heather learned two grade levels per year.[1] After three years, Heather caught up with her peers and returned to Alabama to graduate from public middle school with a 3.6 GPA.
Whitestone moved to Birmingham at age sixteen, following her parents' divorce. She attended the Alabama School of Fine Arts for a year and graduated from Berry High School (now Hoover High School) in 1991. Her passion was ballet and because of her Deafness, she had spent most of her time developing her ballet skills. She then went on to study at Jacksonville State University.
Whitestone competed in many beauty pageants, winning the Shelby County Junior Miss pageant. Her first year in the Miss America system, she won the Miss Jacksonville State University title, and went on to be Miss Alabama. She stood next to Miss Virginia (Culen Johnson) in the finals of the Miss America pagent, 1995. When the first runner up was announced, Whitestone could not hear the host Regis Philbin but could read his lips. Surprised, she looked to her fellow contestant for confirmation that she had won.[2]
As Miss America Heather showcased her S.T.A.R.S. program all around the country. S.T.A.R.S. stands for "Success Through Action and Realization of your dreams." S.T.A.R.S. has five points which are: positive attitude, belief in a dream, the willingness to work hard, facing obstacles, and building a strong support team.
Heather also served as an executive board member on the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities.
Since her Miss America win, Whitestone has completed her studies at Jacksonville State University, where she was a member of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority and has continued to promote awareness of Deaf issues. She has also spoken out in detail about her close relationship with God, one that she has had ever since she rediscovered church as a teenager. She wrote about her life experiences in her third book, Let God Surprise You: Trust God with Your Dreams.
A volunteer for Republican causes, she spoke at the party's National Conventions of 1996 and 2000, for GOP presidential nominees Bob Dole and George W. Bush.[3]
In 2002, she courted controversy among the Deaf community when she decided to have a cochlear implant operation in order to hear to an extent in her right ear, the hearing of which she had lost at 18 months. The device was activated on September 19, 2002. She said the primary motivation for electing the surgery was an incident when she did not hear her son's cries for help. She said that she has not regretted her decision, thanking her family for supporting her.[4]
Whitestone is a motivational speaker and lives on Saint Simons Island with her husband John McCallum, whom she met when he served as a Congressional aide to Speaker Newt Gingrich. The couple has three children.[5]
Some of Whitestone's accomplishments include:
Appointed by President Bush and confirmed by the US Senate to the National Council on Disability - Resigned in 2010.
Becoming a board member for the Helen Keller Foundation for Research and Education, from 1995-2002.
Whitestone was appointed to the Advisory Council for the National Institute of Health on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, in 2002.
She has appeared on CNN, ABC's Good Morning America and The View. She has also been in print articles for USA Today and People Magazine.
In 2003, Whitestone filmed two public service announcements to bring awareness about "Dogs for the Deaf", which is a hearing-dog organization.
She became a spokesperson for the Starkey Hearing Aid Foundation and for Cochlear America's.
Whitestone has written three books: Listening with My Heart, Believing in the Promise, and Let God Surprise You. She has also spearheaded the nation's largest multimedia public service campaign to identify early hearing loss, which was created by the Miss America Organization and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf.
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