Nelson Bailey:
CLASS OF 1962
Tavares High SchoolClass of 1962
Tavares, FL
Florida State University - LawClass of 1969
Tallahassee, FL
Florida State UniversityClass of 1966
Tallahassee, FL
Nelson's Story
Life
Nelson E. Bailey (born January 12, 1943) graduated from Tavares High School in 1962. He then graduated from the Charter Class of the Florida State University College of Law in 1969. He now is a County Judge in South Florida, in the town of Belle Glade in the vast agriculture producing area of western Palm Beach County.
Nelson grew up in the small town of Tavares in central Florida where his father was a beekeeper, meaning a commercial honey producer, and so as a child and young man through his law-school days Nelson spent much time with his father working in his fatherÂs Âbee yards on the lands of ranchers, farmers and grove owners throughout central Florida.
Prior to becoming a County Judge in 1995, Nelson was an attorney with the Florida Department of Agriculture, then an Assistant Attorney General of Florida, and then a criminal defense lawyer in private practice for 22 years in West Palm Beach. During his time as a lawyer for the state and in private practice he handled criminal trials and appeals at every level of the state and federal court system, from County Court to the United States Supreme Court.
Nelson has a passion for Florida History and for Storytelling. He is the only person listed in the Directory of American Storytellers as a teller of exclusively Florida tales. In his performances as a ÂFlorida Cracker Storyteller of the late 1800Âs he shares his knowledge of the state's unique and largely forgotten history and cultural heritage.
He often tells his stories while mounted on his Florida Cracker Horse, a rare and endangered breed of horse with Spanish bloodlines that go back nearly five hundred years in Florida -- a...Expand for more
nd while accompanied by ÂCooter, his Florida Cur cowdog, a working dog used to gather and hold herds of cattle.
NelsonÂs Florida stories weave together a multicolored quilt of Florida history. He tells stories of Native-American mound builders prior to the 1500Âs; of Spanish explorers, settlers, and ranchers in the 1500 and 1600Âs; of Seminole traditions and of the Black Seminoles of the 1700 and 1800Âs; and finally, of FloridaÂs White, Black, Hispanic, and Native American Âcowhunters. He tells of the cowhunters practices in the 1800Âs and today. (People call them Âcowboys out West; but in the Deep South they have always been and still are called Âcowhunters.Â) Not only does Nelson talk about cowhunter ways, he demonstrates some of them with his horse, cow whip, and dog. Along the way he offers some surprising insights into FloridaÂs forgotten role in American history.
Nelson and his horse have traveled over much of the land about which he talks, and they have ridden alongside and Âcow hunted with the descendants of many of the Florida folks -- Cracker, Spanish, Black, and Seminole -- of whom he speaks.
He offers a view of the land and of its people that is steeped in the real history of this place we call Florida.
Nelson and his wife Carol live on their small ranch in Loxahatchee, a rural community in western Palm Beach County. Nelson's son Travis is a school teacher in Palm Beach County. Nelson presides over court in a branch courthouse located on the western edge of the county in the heart of South Florida's most productive sugarcane, rice and vegetable producing farmlands  a part of Florida unknown to most Floridians today.
Register for Free to view all details!
Reunions
Photos