When he isn’t teaching English, adjunct instructor Gregory Bade is sometimes in the pits.

Bade captures behind-the- scenes moments at Texas Motor Speedway via photography. The thunderous, grease-ridden pastime once earned him a thirty photo art exhibit on SE Campus, where he teaches.

Teaching has reaped the photojournalist recognition as well. Last semester, Bade became the first adjunct instructor to win the Excellence In Teaching award on SE. As part of the honor, All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot was donated to the library on behalf of SE Campus in his name. Bade said it was a favorite series of his.

Some students who have taken a class from him will take an additional one, and it is not because he is easy, Bade said.

Bade thinks he received the newly established SE award because he is involved and tries to involve his students. He believes his students need to know teachers are active participants in their chosen field of study, he said.

“I teach writing, and I am a working writer who has deadlines to meet and a publisher to answer to,” he said. “I am not just an individual who got a degree in English and decided to teach.”

Bade, who freelances for the Weatherford Democrat, has been writing articles for publications since he was 20. When he talks about point of view, revision and considering an audience, he knows what he is talking about.

“It is textbook knowledge,” he said, “but it is more than that.It is what happens in the world outside of the college setting.”

— Karen Gavis