In August 2003 when Chicora Heyward entered Charleston Southern University, she brought everything she owned in garbage bags, unable even to afford a suitcase. Three years later, in November 2006, she stood before a cheering audience, accepting the title and crown of Miss CSU.
Chicora HeywardWhen Heyward tells her story, she holds nothing back. “When I first enrolled here, my mother was in prison and my father was battling a drug addiction,” she admits. “The day I moved in, I felt like everyone was looking at me. Here were all these students with their parents helping them move into their rooms, and I didn’t even have my mom and dad to kiss me goodbye or to tell me, ‘It’s okay. We’ll be at home if you need us.'” The truth was, Heyward had no home.
She grew up in Beaufort, with her younger twin brothers and her mom, while her father wandered in and out of their lives. She was a good student and was one of the track team captains at Beaufort High School.
Heyward’s mother was a big part of her life. She provided a stable factor and a “Christian environment where everything was about God and church.” But when Heyward was 16, her mother was arrested and sent to prison. Heyward’s father stayed with the children for a while but soon disappeared, leaving them on their own.
Devastated, Heyward recalls, “At that point, everything in my life started crumbling, unraveling.” She had no one. She considered joining the military, where at least she would have housing, but she was too young, and she knew college would be a struggle financially. Some family members took her and her siblings in, but the family “had a totally different way of life,” and soon Heyward left to live with a friend.
“I feel like sometimes God takes things away to show you that this is not the purpose he has for you; there is something else, something bigger,” Heyward shares. And at this point, Heyward was stripped of everything. “I went from having my own room and my own things to having nothing, not even a bed,” she says. Being separated from her brothers was extremely difficult, but it was her concern for them that fueled her desire to keep going. She felt she “had to be the strong one, to be the rock for them.” While living with her friend, she got a job and was able to send money to encourage them.
The friend she was living with had plans to attend Charleston Southern and begged Heyward to come with her. Heyward’s enrollment counselor, Jessica Eddins, spoke with her frequently, encouraging her and working on financial aid.
Heyward sighs heavily, recalling her first semester at Charleston Southern. “It was so hard to focus on school because of all the things I was lacking.” Heyward explains how she felt ashamed and fearful that people would find out “what she really was.” She felt totally alone, not knowing who to trust. “At that point, God was the only person I could talk to,” she said. Heyward doesn’t hesitate to admit that prayer was the only thing that pulled her through those bleak days. “I prayed a whole lot,” she said. “And I kept asking, ‘God, why? Why are you taking me through this?”‘
As the months passed, God showed her step by step the plan he had for her.
During that first semester, Heyward met Brian Berry, a 2003 graduate of Charleston Southern. Their relationship grew, and soon Heyward felt safe enough to share with him the secrets of her past. Berry became a “positive role model” in her life. He completed his master’s degree in counseling, advanced in his career at the Carolina Youth Development Center, and is currently working on his MBA.
With her newfound support through her relationship with Berry, her friends at school, and the Charleston Southern community, Heyward stepped out and became involved in many campus activities. “People were embracing me and encouraging me as a role model. Freshmen would come up to me and tell me how much I had meant to them, and hearing that meant so much. The more time passed, the more I realized it wasn’t about me.”
Heyward changed her major from communication to psychology. She firmly believes she is to help others who may be going through the same things she endured, and, after graduating in May, plans to attend USC in Columbia to get her master of social work degree.
She shares her passion for helping others, barely stopping to catch her breath. “I am a living example that you can come out of where you are; you do not have to be a product of your environment. I’ve got to help the children; the ones who fall between the cracks. I want to help them see they can be comfortable in their own skin, to be their best selves, and to learn that other people will love and respect them for it,” she continues. “There is so much peer pressure and media pressure to look a certain way, and I want to tell them, ‘You don’t have to look like that,'” she adds, laughing, “I don’t look like that. I know I am not the most beautiful person you will ever meet, but I am beautiful inside – and that means so much more!”
Reflecting on that exciting evening when she was crowned Miss CSU, Heyward muses, “Just when you think God has given up on you, he does something that shows you are just where he wants you to be. Just when you get tired and want to give up, he says, ‘Here, my child, here is a little something.'” In Heyward’s life, the “little something” now is an opportunity to share her story and inspire others as Miss CSU.