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Rita Rose met Sandy Allen in 1977, when Sandy was already the record-holder in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the tallest woman alive. She stood at 7 feet 7 and ¼ inches tall, while Rita was 5 feet 4, and Rita wished to interview her for a story for The Indianapolis Star.

World's Tallest Woman: The Giantess of Shelbyville High by Rita Rose

That interview, aimed at sensitively chronicling the life of a person beyond the norm in a society that often misunderstands unusual persons, became the beginning of a thirty-year friendship. Rita was in Sandy Allen’s life, learning of her childhood traumas being mocked in school for her height, praising her for scorning the life of a circus freak, even opening her home for Sandy for a while.

This unusual friendship has found expression in a new book from Hawthorne Publishing, a book Sandy reviewed and enthusiastically endorsed just before her death in August. Rita’s World’s Tallest Woman: The Giantess of Shelbyville High is a thinly fictionalized account of Sandy’s real years at the high school, home of the Golden Bears, in the town in which she grew up.

Students who mocked her, shouting "Jolly Green Giant," surgeries caused by her condition, which eventually kept her off the basketball team she loved, and troubles at home are all chronicled. But so are the accomplishments of a young girl who was a fine scholar, graduating with honors, a member of school service groups and friend to those who could share the unusual friendship of someone who wore a size 22 shoe and ducked down through the doorway when entering rooms.

Shelbyville, Indiana, as a small town with a heart which eventually expanded to embrace and show pride in its most famous citizen, is depicted realistically and with respect. The town itself becomes a character as a fictional young woman takes Sandy on as a friend after an interview for the school paper.

Order now from Hawthorne Publishing.