Heather was born on February 24th, 1973. She was not born deaf. As like many deaf people who become deaf because of a sickness, Heather became deaf due to the flu when she was a little over a year old. There are two types of deaf parents. One type wants their child to embrace being deaf and learn sign language. The second type wants to help their child be as “normal” as possible and has them learn to speak. Heather’s mother was the second type and had Heather learn to talk. American Sign Language was not used by Heather until her last year of high school.
Heather did not want her disability to hold her back. She was a student at a public school …show more content…
At the time of the biography written about her on the Miss America website, she had been a spokesperson for Starkey’s for 14 years, as well as The Cochlear Implant company for a total of 5 years. There were so many different causes that touched Heather’s heart that she felt she had to be apart of, like the Republican National Convention, National Institute of Health on Deafness and Other Communication Disorder’s Advisory Committee, and the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety initiative to just name a few. Another one of her exciting achievements was that she was named Person of the Week by Peter