High Life : A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Sunny Outlook on Silent World : Education: Deaf senior at University High is a cheerleader and has won an oratorical contest.

At a football game last fall at University High School in Irvine, some boys on the sidelines were waving their hands in an unusual way. It was sign language, forming the words “I love you,” and it was directed to a certain member of the 17-girl cheerleading squad.

Sunshine Morrow, 18, good-humoredly returned their greeting with quick motions of her hands. Observers who stare, curious at the sight, don’t offend Sunshine. She smiles at them, revealing a mature patience with their curiosity.

Never a fraction of a second behind the squad, Sunshine’s ability and confidence offered no clue to onlookers that she lives with total deafness.

Her beaming countenance and bright outlook on life personify her name, and the silent world she lives in has not dimmed her light. She reads lips expertly and has learned to speak after twice-weekly speech therapy, which began when she was just a year old.

Her mother, Paula Wirth, blames the deafness on the Agent Orange that Paula’s father, who died when Sunshine was a baby, was exposed to in Vietnam. Many children of men exposed to the chemical were born deaf, Wirth said.

In view of her many accomplishments, one would never guess Sunshine lives isolated from the noisy, bustling world others take for granted. Of her many achievements, Sunshine says being a cheerleader for three years in a mainstream high school is her most memorable.

“I’ve wanted to be a cheerleader in a hearing school ever since I was a child,” she said. “I knew that I would have to try twice as hard as the hearing cheerleaders. The very first time I tried out and made the squad, I began to realize I could do a lot of things the hearing people could do.”

She has developed a keen ability to adapt and keep up with the squad. “We tell each other what cheers we will do before we begin. I just look at another cheerleader and start the cheer, then I look at the audience and cheer.”

Her popularity and respect she enjoys from her peers were evident when she was chosen as Homecoming Queen in November. Sunshine thought she wouldn’t be named for this honor because there were 50 other candidates.

“I didn’t think many people really knew me, because a lot of hearing people at University High School don’t feel able to talk to me. Homecoming made me realize that people like me and accept me for who I am. I hadn’t realized before how many people I touched during my high school years,” she said.

Among those whom Sunshine has impressed with her talents and strength of character has been producer Henry Winkler. He selected her to act on the television shows “MacGyver” and “Dallas.”

“I played a deaf child named Maria in one episode of ‘MacGyver,’ ” she said. “MacGyver invented a new machine that could make me hear. My part in ‘Dallas’ was small. I played a deaf student.”

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Creativity has enabled Sunshine to accomplish things many others might not want to tackle. In August she won a first-place scholarship for the Oratorical Contest of Southern California on the subject “If I Could See Tomorrow.” She gave the speech in sign language, and a speaker interpreted for her.

Sunshine’s acclimation into the speaking world has not come without a struggle. If she is in a group of more than two hearing people, she sometimes requests one of them to repeat what was said.

“When I don’t understand what is going on and people assume I do, I feel alone,” she said.

“Whenever I’m in a hearing class I have to have an interpreter to translate (into sign language) what the teacher is saying. I look at the interpreter the whole time and sometimes it makes me feel like I am not a part of the class.

“I’ve met people who act differently toward me. They treat me as if I am incompetent. Some deaf people want to be treated normally and some don’t. I personally can’t live in a small world.”

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Sunshine lives in Garden Grove but attends University High because of the school’s regional program for the hearing-impaired, which serves 80 students from Orange County. Sometimes she has to drive as many as four times back and forth to school during the course of a day for games, practices and other activities.

Sunshine says she has developed close relationships with both the hearing and the deaf that will endure long after she graduates in June and goes to Gallaudet University, a college for the deaf in Washington, D.C.

“When you get out of high school most of your friends will fade, but not for the deaf. We will always keep in touch because we share a common problem and a common language,” she said. “Many of my best friends are hearing. They learn sign language because they want to get to know me better. That’s a true friend.”

At cheerleading camp last summer, Sunshine introduced the other girls to sign language. By the end, many asked for her address so they could keep in touch with her.

Sunshine’s aspiration is to become a teacher for deaf children.

“Many people underestimate the deaf. I hope that deaf children get what they always dreamed of because they can do anything they want, if they want it badly enough,” she said.