"During the 1994 Miss America Pageant, Heather Whitestone challenged the limits of her profound deafness to capture both the pageant crown and America's heart. Heather's ballet interpretation of Sandi Patty's "Via Dolorosa" drew repeated ovations from her spellbound audience as she danced to music she could not hear. That night, Heather became the 75th Anniversary Miss America, the first physically challenged Miss America in the pageant's history - and eventually, one of the most popular Miss Americas ever." "But Heather's dramatic story really began twenty years earlier. At eighteen months, Heather fell victim to a deadly illness that left her with a devastating hearing loss. In those dark days, her parents were faced with the first of many hard choices they would have to make about Heather's health, hearing, and education - choices that would dramatically affect their daughter's life." "In this moving story, Heather's mother, Daphne Gray, recounts those agonizing choices. Refusing to leave her daughter in a silent world, Daphne enrolled her in ballet class. She researched the educational options for her daughter, making the controversial choice to emphasize speech rather than sign language. And she never, ever stopped believing that Heather could one day thrive in a hearing person's world."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved