Editor's Note: This is the twenty-fifth in a series of spotlights on Mathematics and Statistics faculty. Mr. Robert Payne joined us as a lecturer in Summer 2001.

Do you have a hobby or collect something? How did you get into that?

My biggest hobby is table tennis…well, there is also hunting…and fishing… My dad got me started in each of those. Oh…and arrowhead hunting. I have an extensive collection of artifacts that I have picked up from pretty much anywhere I could find bare dirt to look in. Daddy got me started on that too. I like to be outside.

Tell us about an adventure you had, or would like to have.

One afternoon when I was a teenager my dad, brother, one of my sisters, and I went shark fishing. (This is the short version!) We were in an 18-foot semi-cabin boat with a 165 HP inboard-outboard. We fished in a pass between the Gulf of Mexico and Matagorda Bay. Daddy hooked a huge “something” that towed us out into the Gulf. After fighting the fish for many hours, it got dark, and an off-shore rain squall blew in. The fish finally broke off, and Daddy got sea sick. It was up to me to pilot the boat back to port. The problem was that, even with a powerful spotlight, we couldn't find the pass in the beach because of the high waves, the darkness, and because the fish didn't tow us straight out to sea. I navigated the boat several miles north along the barrier island until we came to another pass marked with granite jetties. By that time the waves going through the jetties were probably 10 feet high. One time when cresting a huge wave, the boat twisted sideways and I lost rudder control. That happens because the water moves faster at the crest of a wave than in the trough. The wave moved under us, and I got the boat straightened back out, and eventually we got safely through the jetties into port. We all still wonder how big that fish was that got away…

An adventure I would like to have is to visit some of our national parks such as Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Sequoia, and go off-trail to explore.

What was one of your biggest successes or failures?

My biggest success was probably managing to get a Master's in mathematics from SFA. My biggest failure was probably not getting a PhD. But that failure is not so important to me anymore, because my Master's degree brought me back to SFA to coordinate the developmental math program where I met a graduate teaching assistant named Rachel Andrews. I am proud that she became my wife, and that our daughter, Olivia, is now going to school at SFA, and our son, Jesse, is on his way. Oh yeah. I built a house. That's lots of successes!

What kind of music, books, movies, sports, games, cars, etc. (pick one or more) do you like? Is there any particular reason?

I like old country western, folk music, and bluegrass. I play from those genres on my guitar, and I enjoy my music, even though maybe others can tell that I have absolutely no sense of rhythm, and no musical ear! I love to find a good book and disappear from this world into some other one. My favorite authors are Rex Stout, Georgette Heyer, Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey, Isaac Asimov…it's a long list…not necessarily in that order. I wish I could write like that. My favorite game is “42” (a domino game). My dad taught my siblings and me to play when we were single-digits old. Our family has been playing this game ever since, and no one of us has ever picked seven of a kind.

What do you study? How did you get into that? Are there any (real-world) applications of your area of study?

I don't study anything secular, formally. I have diverse interests, so it would be (was) exceedingly difficult for me to focus on some narrow academic topic for a sufficiently long time to qualify to “study” it. I do study teaching and students, and if there had been a PhD program in mathematics education through an in-state math department while I was in school, that's what I should have studied.

What projects (academic or not) are you currently working on?

I am learning to play a mountain dulcimer that I have borrowed from a Russian lady who we buy milk from. It's easy to play, but my guitar callouses are all in the wrong place!

What is the closest you have ever come to dying?

I think everyone is often one bad decision away from dying. In my case, I was driving my Camry about 65 mph down Hwy 21 East, a winding, hilly, narrow country road between Nacogdoches and St. Augustine. I came over a hill and around a curve, and there in front of me, also going east, was a large John Deere tractor being driven about 5 mph by a young teenager. I had to make a split-second decision. Step hard on the brakes and slow down behind him, or pass him on the left. There was a no-passing zone just starting, but given the discrepancy in our speeds, and the distance I could see to the next curve, there was no question that I could safely pass and get back in my lane before any danger of on-coming traffic was presented. I'm still here today, and the youngster is presumably still here too, because I stepped hard on the brake and pulled up behind him. At that moment he turned sharp left into a driveway without ever looking back over his shoulder.

What did you do to put yourself through school, or what weird job have you held?

I was a deck-hand on a crab boat one summer. I baited crab traps with dead mullet, culled out the small crabs, rousted boxes of crabs around the boat, and kept the equipment clean. I also spent two summers repairing lawnmowers, weed eaters, and chainsaws. I managed to earn enough working in summers to pay for tuition and books. I don't think that can be done any more.

What was the best piece of advice you were ever given?

Always obey traffic laws.

The thing that really makes you cool and unique is something that I would never have thought to list here. What is it?

All of my family call me Joe. Until I went to college, I would hardly admit that my name was actually Robert. The story behind that is one of my grandfathers, being excited about the impending arrival of his first grandchild, needed a name for me. He started calling me, generically, “Joe.” As in “It won't be long now until ol' Joe gets here!” Once I was born, the name stuck, and everyone, except for my great grandmother on the other side of the family, called me Joe. She called me Michael, which is my middle name, and I hated that even more than being called Robert. Now I don't care what you call me, as long as you call me when there is food in the lunch room! If I had been a girl, I'm sure I would have been called Jo.