Heather Whitestone

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.

Early life

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. 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.

Pageant record

Whitestone first participated in Shelby County Junior Miss program. While not actually a beauty pageant, the experience gave her the confidence to begin entering pageants. 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 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 member on the President's Committee on Employment of People Disabilities.

After Miss America

Since her Miss America win, Whitestone has completed her studies at Jacksonville State University and 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, John, James, and William McCallum.^[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.^[6]

Bibliography

• Listening with My Heart (1997) ISBN 0-385-48675-8
• Believing the Promise (1999) ISBN 0-310-24628-8
• Let God Surprise You (2003) ISBN 0-385-49507-2
• Heavenly Crowns (2004) ISBN 0-310-24627-X

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Heather Whitestone.

• Miss America 1995 Philippine Visit in 1997 — MCCID Special Tribute Article