Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Alabama Belle
Alabama Belle
Alabama Belle
A HE M
©
S
UT FMA
SE N DIA
produced by Whitney Wise Long | by Elizabeth Bonner Czapski | styling by Beth K. Seeley | photography by John O'Hagan
E N LA 20
R
I N DY 22
N
-
E
M
to her that words are pronounced with different
ore than 20 years have passed since rhythms. Unable to hear these rhythms, Heather was left
Heather Whitestone McCallum’s historic confused—until her mother thought of a serendipitous
Miss America victory, a feat that made her solution. “She came up with the idea to put me in ballet class,
the first woman with a disability to hold because she remembered learning how to count the [beats]
the iconic title. In the time since her reign, with the music,” Heather recalls. “Every piece of music also
Heather, who is profoundly deaf, has advocated faithfully for has its own rhythms. When my ballet teacher taught me how
the hearing impaired as well as those with other disabilities. to count with the [beats] as we listened to music, I fell in love
She has written four books and traveled extensively as a with ballet. I felt like I was born to dance onstage.”
motivational speaker, but despite her lengthy list of Heather continued to dance her way from an elementary
accomplishments, Heather’s favorite roles thus far have been school for the deaf to a public high school in Birmingham,
wife and mother to her four sons, ages 4 to 18—a role she where she entered her first pageant during her senior year.
calls her “other big dream.” “The pageants gave me a chance to keep doing what I loved
“Being a mom is the most rewarding job,” Heather says. and earn scholarships,” she says. In college at Jacksonville
Today, her family of six lives in a serene, white 1920s home State University, she honed her talent with more precision,
with a refined cottage feel in St. Simons, Georgia. She spends learning to listen for sound waves as her dancing cues. Her
-
Y
her days balancing the schedules of her four active boys in very prowess in dance eventually earned her the title of Miss
N IN
IA D
2
02
E D LA
ER EN
2
different seasons of life as well as working with her husband, Jacksonville State University.
E
UT S S
M
SO - A
FF H
N
A
M
71 SOUTHERNLADYMAGAZINE.COM MARCH-APRIL 2018 72
O
H
©
“THE OLDER I GET, THE MORE GRATITUDE
I HAVE FOR MY MISS AMERICA CROWN.”
—HEATHER WHITESTONE MCCALLUM
A HE M
©
support team. These ideals helped make her victory possible because it forced me to hear His voice in my heart without
S
UT FMA
SE N DIA
E N LA 20
and have continued to inform her life’s course. Since her hearing the world’s.”
R
I N DY 22
N
-
E