Where in the Southeast do you live?
I would go on line and do a search for "hearing-ear" dogs. I am sure you should be able to find some organizations that do training.
I did a quick search and found the following website. There are a bunch of them but this one seemed really interesting:
http://www.hardofhearingchildren.com...g_ear_dogs.htm
good luck..... please keep me posted, I am losing my hearing, slowly but surely and if all goes well with you (I'll let you be the first), then I might give it a whirl.