Meet Mount Dora High ag teacher Cindy Bellamy, Lake County Teacher of the Year

Mount Dora High School's agriculture teacher, Cindy Bellamy, didn't grow up on a farm. One of seven children, Lake County's new Teacher of the Year 2025 grew up in the suburbs of Orlando. The closest she came to rearing livestock was caring for the family dog.

But Bellamy did later own a horse, which helped qualify her for the ag position, which she had previously never imagined taking on.

But taking on the impossible and the unlikely seem to be a throughline of Bellamy's accomplished career in education.

The Sorrento resident was dubbed Teacher of the Year by a panel of judges from outside the district, who reviewed her application, interviewed administrators and peers and observed her in the classroom. Brittany Rudolph-Montgomery, an ELA teacher at Carver Middle, and Karen Kelly, a mathematics teacher at Tavares High, were the other finalists.

Naysayers, Bellamy said, dismissed her at first as an ag teacher. They said that there wasn't enough dairy industry in town to make the program worthwhile, but the negativity didn't deter her.

"We'll learn this together," she told her students, and the Mount Dora ag program went on to achieve Top 10 status in the state and national honors not long after that.

Bellamy now teaches Agriculture Foundations (Honors Science Course); Agriscience Technology I; Agriscience Technology II; and Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Directed Studies at Mount Dora High School.

"I taught science. So, that was a good basis for agriculture," Bellamy explained, "but more importantly, my daughter was in 4-H. She raised horses and rode horses. A lot of her friends were in the Future Farmers of America, and I saw them from the time they were little to when they were in high school, and the confidence it built in them. ... She won FFA's third place award in the entire nation in horse judging. ... She was so shy when she was little. She would not talk to people. Now she's the head of dairy for the Georgia Department of Agriculture."

Working with students from sunrise to past sundown, often as late as 9 p.m., Bellamy shepherded her young ag professionals to win highly competitive, coveted FFA awards such as Florida's finest chapter, Florida's premier chapter and was recognized as the highest-achieving chapter at the organization's National Chapter Awards.

What's the special sauce in Bellamy's recipe for success? It's part determination, part empathy for her students and a heaping helping of good humor.

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Above all, Bellamy prioritizes life skills, getting to know her students, understanding their strengths and weaknesses, gearing them toward an activity that will enable them to shine, improve habits and build confidence.

"Every aspect of life is affected by agriculture," she emphasized. "It's not just the farmer. I teach my kids how to handle business, how to handshake, how to look someone in the eye and introduce yourself."

The ability to connect with her students and tailor their work, whether it's livestock judging, helping rear a cow or manage things behind the scenes, students find a role to play in Bellamy's real-world incubator.

"Some kids do band. Some are cheerleaders," Bellamy observed. "But our program is a place like no other. For most kids, when they join my club, it's like finding a home. They just excel at it because there's so many things that they can go into. ... If you're into drones, we can teach you about drones and how to use them in an agriculture setting. The same goes for technology."

"If you're into mechanics, we have a program where kids learn to do electricity and plumbing, and some of them will build tractors and repair machinery," she continued. "There's just something for everybody. ... So, when I knew that they were gonna cut the program at Mount High School, I said, 'You know what, I'll try it.'"

The 9th-12th grade teacher at Mount Dora High School found out she won the top spot at the 2025 Lake County Schools Teacher of the Year celebration on Feb. 3, hosted by the Education Foundation of Lake County and presented by Jenkins Auto Group, Duke Energy, Ernie Morris Enterprises, Hon and Lake-Sumter State College.

As Lake County’s Teacher of the Year, Bellamy moves on to the statewide competition and will be reviewed by a Florida Department of Education state selection committee. The Florida Teacher of the Year finalists will be announced in May, and the 2025 Florida Department of Education Teacher of the Year will be named in July 2024.

Bellamy wasn't always a teacher. Raised by parents she praised for having a strong work ethic, Lake County's Teacher of the Year was a lawyer in the previous chapter of her career.

Instead of classrooms, Bellamy focused her energies on the rigors of the legal world as an attorney at a prominent law firm, representing high-profile clients such as the Orlando Magic.

But something was calling Bellamy to do something more meaningful, more needed. Her sister noticed her knack for reading to kids and talked her into becoming a teacher.

She started teaching at Seminole Springs Elementary School 26 years years ago and began her stint in the ag program 14 years ago. She's also taught at Round Lake Charter School. During the 2020-21 school year, she was named the Mount Dora High School Teacher of the Year.

Over the past decade and a half, Bellamy has grown the Mount Dora High ag program from nine students to 326. She is now ambassador for the state's agriculture education leadership team and makes four trips throughout the state each year. Educating kids and their parents about how we get food on our table, especially in light of the changes in rural landscapes in Lake County, is more important than ever to the busy educator.

"We visit farms and packing houses and things like that," she said of her work as an ambassador. "We took a trip to South Florida, and it was a basically vegetable and fruit packing house. ... They handle most of their food from the field to the grocery store within two days. ... So, yes, you know, there is imported food and things like that, but when it comes to the food here in Florida, when you go into Publix, you're getting food that is basically been picked within the last two days."

Along with her designation as Lake County’s 2025 Teacher of the Year, Bellamy will receive a 2024 Honda Civic from Jenkins Auto Group that she’ll be able to drive for three years. Insight Credit Union has donated a $500 gas card and Jostens will present her with an official Teacher of the Year ring.

"I'm super excited and humbled, but I was chosen out of all the teachers in Lake County," Bellamy pointed out. "I also want those other teachers to know we can't do it without them. The world can't progress without teachers. ... We must appreciate teachers and realize they dedicate themselves for all of us, for our little ones, as well as our families, our community. We can't do without teachers."

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Cultivating success: Lake County's Teacher of the Year, Cindy Bellamy