Abbeville High freshman, despite being 3-feet, 11 inches tall, stands tall when dancing

Written by Laura Trahan

Dancing can be used to express a person’s emotions in a way that they have not been able to do so before, and Abbeville High School freshman Halle Theall, 15, a cancer survivor, is one of those.
“If I have mixed emotions, I dance to get them out,” she said. “If I’m sad, I dance. If I’m happy, I dance. I like contemporary the most, which is ballet but a little more jazzy. It was just natural. I saw my cousin dancing and said that I wanted to do that, so I started when I was five years old.”
Theall has been dancing for 11 years and is currently a student at Dance Connection in Abbeville. She has also joined the Abbeville High dance team. She enjoys dancing anywhere, from dancing zydeco in the pressbox at a baseball game, or performing in front of spectators on a football field. Naturally, performing in front of a crowd can leave a person feeling nervous and scared, but she is not bothered by it at all.
Standing at around 3’11’’, Theall has gone through a lot since she was young. Around 2002, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a form of leukemia where malignant and immature white blood cells multiply and become overproduced within the bone marrow. It can outnumber healthy cells and spread to other organs if not treated. It is most common among children at 2-5 years of age and later for people of an older age.
In addition to that, she was born with a weak immune system, which resulted in her having leukemia, as well as being, as she put it, a dwarf. Though she was very young when she was receiving treatment, she did not feel afraid and liked making friends with others.
“I was young, so I don’t know, but I wasn’t scared. I liked going to the hospital because I got to play with others,” she explained. “I used to play at the little playground, and I played with some people who had similar characteristics as me. I’ve been in remission for nine years now. It’s going to be my tenth year next January.”
Along with being on the dance team, she participates in the school’s BETA Club. In the summer, she goes to a camp in Mobile, Ala. called Camp Rap-A-Hope for kids who have had cancer where they do all sorts of activities. She also likes to draw, which explains why art is her favorite subject.
“I like art because I’m very good at it, which makes it easy,” she added.
Her height has never been much of a problem in her life. She does not let it get in her way and she can handle actions such as reaching for something on a counter. In addition to that, she is a strong-willed person and can take bullying, though she said she had never been made fun of. Still, she said she knows that bullies would not want to get in her way.
“They know that if they pick on me, I’ll pick on them back!” she joked.
Like many others, friends and family are a vital part of her life. Her mother, Kay, works as a reading coach at Herod Elementary and her father, Elliot, works offshore. She enjoys having fun with her friends and is blessed that her family is around whenever she needs something or wants to be cheered up.
“My family is important because they have helped me through the struggle with leukemia,” she explained. “If I’m having a bad day, they (my friends) cheer me up. I really don’t ever have a bad day. If I’m bored or want to do something, I go with my friends.”
“She’s just a wonderful, great kid,” said Abbeville High School Principal Ivy Landry. “She’s always moving. She is also up-front and personal.”