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Heather Whitestone Research Paper

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Heather Whitestone McCallum was born on February 24, 1973 in Dothan, Alabama (“Heather Whitestone”). When Heather turned 18 months old, she captured a high fever from the virus, Haemophilus Influenzae, which resulted in hospitalization. Whitestone was close to death, when the doctors prescribed her two extremely powerful antibiotics. She returned home as a normal toddler until her mother had an accident in the kitchen and realized something was wrong. Whitestone’s mother had dropped several pans while cooking, and Heather did not jump or move when the pans hit the floor. Heather was taken to a children’s hospital, where the doctors concluded that she had lost her hearing from Haemophilus Influenzae, the powerful antibiotics, or a combination of both (“Heather Whitestone | Bio | Premiere Motivational Speakers Bureau.”). At a young age, Whitestone’s parents trained her to read lips and speak using an educational arrangement titled, “Acoupedics.” Because she learned how to speak and read lips, she did not receive an interpreter during her years in public school (“Heather Whitestone”). While growing up, Heather had a passion for dance and attended ballet classes …show more content…

I enjoyed learning about Heather’s background, education, and career goals before and after her reign as Miss America. Heather Whitestone inspired me because she reached out to several people and motivated them to work hard and focus on their dreams. I can only imagine the amount of people in both the hearing world and Deaf Community that looked up to Heather and praised her for her successes. Even though Whitestone joined the hearing world later in life, I believe she used her cochlear implant to associate herself with deaf and hearing individuals and create relationships and a joint understanding with members of each

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