Margie Kyle, (second from left wearing a green shirt), demonstrates wreath making to Heather Carpenter’s class. The eighth graders from the N.C. School of the Deaf made a trip to Carpenter and Son Evergreens Dec. 2. At left: Heather Carpenter is shown with some of her students while in Alleghany County.

Carpenter brings deaf students to visit her family’s business

Fifteen years ago, like many children and teens do, Heather Carpenter went to summer camp. Little did she know that she would become so captivated by the experience that she would build her future around it.

“I went to a church camp (Summer Blitz in Oklahoma) back in 1989, saw sign language and decided that was what I wanted to do,” Carpenter, who is an Alleghany native, recalls. “I saw the sign language itself and thought it was a beautiful language.

“I went to the church camp and it all came together,” Carpenter added, referring to working with the deaf through teaching.

Carpenter later attended and graduated from Lenoir-Rhyne in Hickory. There, she majored in deaf education and minored in middle school math. Carpenter added in order to work with deaf children, she had to take “a lot of deaf study, deaf culture and language classes.”

For seven years, Carpenter has been teaching at the North Carolina School for the Deaf in Morganton, where she teaches eighth grade social studies, as well as math.

Walking into her classroom the first day at the North Carolina School for the Deaf, Carpenter recalls she was nervous.

“The first day of school I felt very nervous, but excited,” Carpenter said. “The kids were made me feel much at ease.”

Prior to working at the school, Carpenter worked at Mountain Surf Seafood in Ennice while in high school and while in college, held had a part-time job at Office Depot.

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