Alabama Belle

SINCE BEING NAMED MISS AMERICA 1995, MUCH HAS CHANGED

FOR HEATHER WHITESTONE MCCALLUM, BUT THE PASSIONATE
DISPOSITION AND GRACIOUS DEMEANOR THAT WON HER
THE CROWN AGAINST ALL ODDS REMAIN THE SAME.
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produced by Whitney Wise Long | by Elizabeth Bonner Czapski | styling by Beth K. Seeley | photography by John O'Hagan
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ore than 20 years have passed since
Heather Whitestone McCallum’s historic
Miss America victory, a feat that made her
the first woman with a disability to hold
the iconic title. In the time since her reign,
Heather, who is profoundly deaf, has advocated faithfully for
the hearing impaired as well as those with other disabilities.
She has written four books and traveled extensively as a
motivational speaker, but despite her lengthy list of
accomplishments, Heather’s favorite roles thus far have been
wife and mother to her four sons, ages 4 to 18—a role she
calls her “other big dream.”
“Being a mom is the most rewarding job,” Heather says.
Today, her family of six lives in a serene, white 1920s home
with a refined cottage feel in St. Simons, Georgia. She spends
her days balancing the schedules of her four active boys in very
different seasons of life as well as working with her husband,
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John McCallum, to run their family company,
Human Assets South, an established
background screening business.
Although a cochlear implant operation at
age 29 brought Heather a limited ability to
hear, allowing her to communicate with family,
friends, and employees without the use of sign
language, her deafness still presents challenges
she navigates with grace. “[As in] my year as
Miss America with a disability, the Bible is a
huge help for me,” she says. “I have been
blessed to have a support team that believes
I am capable of doing these jobs.”
Surrounded by silence for most of her life,
Heather always refused to let her deafness
define her. The Dothan, Alabama, native lost
the majority of her hearing when she was just 18
months old after suffering from a severe illness.
Despite being able to discern only the faintest
of sounds through her hearing aid, Heather
found not only a passion but a helping hand for
her disability in an unlikely outlet: dance.
When Heather was 5 years old, her mother
was working to teach her to speak, explaining
to her that words are pronounced with different
rhythms. Unable to hear these rhythms, Heather was left
confused—until her mother thought of a serendipitous
solution. “She came up with the idea to put me in ballet class,
because she remembered learning how to count the [beats]
with the music,” Heather recalls. “Every piece of music also
has its own rhythms. When my ballet teacher taught me how
to count with the [beats] as we listened to music, I fell in love
with ballet. I felt like I was born to dance onstage.”
Heather continued to dance her way from an elementary
school for the deaf to a public high school in Birmingham,
where she entered her first pageant during her senior year.
“The pageants gave me a chance to keep doing what I loved
and earn scholarships,” she says. In college at Jacksonville
State University, she honed her talent with more precision,
learning to listen for sound waves as her dancing cues. Her
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prowess in dance eventually earned her the title of Miss
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Jacksonville State University.
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 “THE OLDER I GET, THE MORE GRATITUDE
I HAVE FOR MY MISS AMERICA CROWN.”
And the rest is history. Heather went on to become Miss
Alabama 1994 and then Miss America the following year,
captivating the judges and audience alike with her winning
talent: a breathtaking ballet performance to the inspirational
song “Via Dolorosa.” “I have many great memories of my
reigning year as Miss America,” Heather says. “Even though
I met many celebrities, rode in well-known parades, made TV
appearances, and visited the White House twice, the most
memorable are meeting children with disabilities—especially
a little deaf and blind boy.
“When I visited a school for the deaf, his mom told me he
couldn’t ‘see’ my crown unless he felt it. She tried to describe
it to him, but he thought I wore a stuffed clown on my head.
The words ‘clown’ and ‘crown’ sounded similar to this boy
with little hearing and no ability to read lips,” she says. “His
eyes got big and sparkled when he felt the crown. It was like
watching Helen Keller when she first realized the water she
felt in her hands had the name ‘water.’ He made me
appreciate my job as Miss America more.”
As the title holder, Heather traveled the country
promoting her motivational program S.T.A.R.S., which
encourages a positive attitude and belief in a dream as well as
a willingness to work hard, face obstacles, and build a strong
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support team. These ideals helped make her victory possible
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and have continued to inform her life’s course. Since her
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—HEATHER WHITESTONE MCCALLUM
reign ended, Heather’s impact hasn’t wavered. She was
appointed by two presidents to several national councils for
people with disabilities. One of the opportunities Heather is
most grateful for is a nationwide campaign she led with the
Alexander Graham Bell Association to promote early
detection of hearing loss. “I am proud to say that every state
in the country now requires hearing screening tests for
newborns,” she says.
While Heather remains an advocate, her family is her top
priority. After years in the spotlight, she has settled into a
lower-key pace perfect for their lives in dreamy St. Simons, a
town Heather and John stumbled upon while planning their
wedding. Wanting a more intimate ceremony that didn’t feel
like a public appearance, the couple decided to move the
wedding from Birmingham one month before the date, opting
instead for the quaint island. The newlyweds initially bought
a small bungalow there to use as a vacation home while living
in Atlanta, then moved to their current home when their first
two sons were toddlers. “We’ve built many great memories in
this house,” Heather says.
Despite all that’s filled her life since, Heather still recalls
her year as Miss America with great clarity and increasing
thankfulness. “Time flies by too fast, and it seems like
yesterday when I arrived at the pageant,” she says. Looking
back, she credits her faith and her champion supporter, her
mother, for her achievements. “God put me in my mother’s
hands as my teacher and mentor,” she says. “As a child, God
allowed my deafness and my mother as tools for encouraging
me to depend on Him. My mother is a determined and
hardworking woman. She refused to quit teaching me to
speak when I wanted to quit as a child for many years. She
believed God had a good plan for my life.
“I would not have looked at the ballet world as a safe haven
and escape without my deafness. People still talk to me about
my ballet performance at the pageant. While I saw deafness
as a thorn to my dreams, God saw my deafness as a blessing,
because it forced me to hear His voice in my heart without
hearing the world’s.”
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