For many years, Heaven-Leigh Dempsey was a cheerleading coach at the Sunshine State.

Now, she’s at the Show-Me State as she is in her first year as head coach of the Montgomery County basketball cheerleading team this winter.

Dempsey leads a team that has four freshmen and two sophomores. The squad includes freshmen Myla Jackul, Kylie Robinson, Aijah Mitchell and Aubrey Galloway and sophomores Kaylee Dillard and Marli Yelton.

“They’re really good girls,” Dempsey said. “They’re really smart, sweet and very honest and they seem very dedicated to their craft.”

Dempsey moved to Montgomery County from Miami, Fla., last year. She coached cheerleading the last nine years at Somerset Academy and The Charter School at Waterstone.

Dempsey said she’s happy that some of her former cheerleaders are enjoying success in life. One of them owns her business, another one is into modeling and another one studied biology in college.

“It’s nice to see them grow and they still message me and say thank you for teaching me the discipline I needed,” said Dempsey, who works as a teacher at Montgomery City Elementary School. “I teach discipline more than anything else.”

This winter, Dempsey is coaching a cheerleading team which has five members who have been cheerleading since seventh grade.

“She’s very stern, but she can also be very fun at the same time,” said Robinson, who is one of those members who has been cheering since middle school. “She knows when to be like, ‘Hey, get yourself together.’ But she’s such a fun coach to be around.”

Yelton transferred from Wellsville-Middletown before the school year. Last summer, she was one of six W-M cheerleaders who earned All-American honors during a Universal Cheerleaders Association cheer camp at W-M.

“I really liked it,” said Yelton, who was a member of the MCHS football cheerleading team last fall. “I like learning new dances and cheers. It explores the mind for cheerleading and makes me feel like more up to it for my future.”

Dillard is the only cheerleader back from last year’s team. She is also a member of the football cheerleading team.

“I started cheering whenever I was in seventh grade because my sister did it first and kind of stole it from her,” Dillard said. “She started doing it and I started liking it a lot, so I’ve done it since. She was like a role model.”

Jackul is cheering for the first time. She said she was influenced by Yelton to join the team.

“We were sitting at our lunch table and she was like, ‘You should join.’ She was talking about it as a joke,” Jackul said. “Then, I actually came to the practice that night and I’ve been going ever since.”