Matthew Ryan Belliston is a new teacher here at Blackfoot High School. He had been teaching for 2 years at Snake River High School and 2 years at another high school prior to becoming part of the Bronco team. His dream job growing up was wanting to become an astrophysicist but stopped once he realized how he had a distaste for the math they had to do. He grew up in Burley, Idaho and the high school he attended was Burley High School. Growing up he would learn to play instruments with his main instrument being the trombone and becoming a part of his school band. He participated in track for 1 year, running the 800 meter and throwing shot put.

One of his hobbies, outside of anything school-related, includes playing video games with his main games being Massively Multiplayer Games (MMO’s) or the more older types like Pac-man. His second favorite hobby is listening to music with his main focus being on jazz and playing his trombone. His last hobby that he talked about was watching sci-fi videos. Something he seems to enjoy is watching professional baseball with his favorite team the: Boston Red Sox. Another fun fact is that his favorite color is red but he couldn’t figure out why, it just seemed to make sense. One thing he wished he could do was go to space because he thinks it would be a humbling experience being able to see the Earth from so far up.

Mr. Belliston attended 2 colleges: Regis University in Denver and Idaho State University (ISU). He recommended ISU, and a fun fact is that he is still attending school although he has already achieved a Bachelors in science and computer networking. His dream college that he wanted to attend was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to become an astrophysicist. With all of his academic achievements, he decided to teach history and English because he enjoys the students and working with them while simultaneously watching them enjoy learning and wanting to learn.

In his daily life, Mr. Belliston comes home to 4 pets, 3 cats and 1 dog.  He favors the cats even though he has a cat allergy. He also has two children: Natalie, is 22 and the other; Glen, is 16. An interesting fact about Belliston is that he has a prosthetic forehead due to him needing 3 brain surgeries. His favorite memory in his teaching career was when they did a play for a book they were reading, and just watching how into the learning everyone was getting with everyone also having a great time.