Jon Brady named 2025 Commitment to Excellence winner
Jon Brady is the Casper College Alumni Association’s 2026 Commitment to Excellence Award honoree (Casper College/Zach Nagy)
Jon Brady is the 2026 Casper College Alumni Association’s Commitment to Excellence Award winner.
The son of two educators, Brady and his family moved to Casper from Sheridan while he was still in the fourth grade. He graduated from Natrona County High School and then was off to the University of Wyoming, majoring in pre-medicine. He soon realized, however, that a career in medicine was not his calling. He decided to enroll in courses including history, art, and what he called a “dreadful” government class. “The professor actually read from his own book,” said Brady. “If I were to teach,” Brady thought to himself, “I would never put a class through that kind of agony.”
Developing an interest in international relations, he transferred to American University before completing his degree at the University of Denver. Under Joseph Korbel, Ph.D., former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s father, Brady completed his M.A. in East European and Russian studies in 1961 and then completed the Foreign Service Exam. He then applied to and was accepted into the U.S. Navy’s Officer Candidate School, where he served on the USS Coral Sea and the USS Ranger and at the Navy Combat Information Center as an acting division officer and as counsel for court-martial trials. Completing his three-and-a-half-year naval commitment, Brady decided to pursue a law degree at the University of Wyoming, graduating in 1968.
Following graduation, Brady decided not to practice law and instead applied to Casper College for a political science faculty position. He was interviewing the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Thus began his nearly 30 years of teaching at the college, where he developed several new courses, including international relations and the Wyoming Constitution, as well as a new program in criminal justice and a major new event, the Social Science Seminar. Brady also served as division chair and president of the newly created faculty senate.
During his career, he worked to improve academic standards and teaching methodologies, collaborated to build collegiality among faculty, served on and led many committees, and worked to encourage students to go beyond a certificate or an associate degree. His Navy experience led him to be willing to advocate for faculty and the college with the administration, as well as being willing to take risks, which included a trip to the Soviet Union, then under Mikhail Gorbachev. Returning revitalized, Brady gave several talks on campus and around Wyoming on life in the Soviet Union.
Brady was very active in the Casper community in many areas. He was a member of the Democratic Party, served as treasurer and chair of the Natrona County Democrats, ran for the state house three times, and worked to bring high-profile speakers, such as Ted Kennedy, to Wyoming. All of this led him to be invited to join U.S. Rep. Teno Roncalio’s office in Washington, D.C.
After joining the Casper Committee on Foreign Relations in 1968, he was director from 1970 to 1998. During that time, he brought numerous speakers to campus, connected speakers with local media for interviews, and the Casper Committee became the first in the country to have women as full members.
Brady was also an active advocate for the environment, leading the local Izaak Walton League chapter for decades, advocating for environmental concerns at the local and state levels, and being appointed by then-Governor Dave Freudenthal to the Environmental Quality Council’s advisory board.
Brady successfully worked with the Casper College Foundation to create scholarships in his parents’ names to provide students with the financial means to study the sciences and education. He also worked with his mother to raise the funds for the construction of the Brady Auditorium for science classes.
Brady thoroughly enjoyed his years teaching students at Casper College. His impact on the college and higher education was recognized by the then Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences in 2000 with the inauguration of the Jon E. Brady Award in Political Study, annually awarded to the top student majoring in political science, international studies, or history.
Once a student of Brady, Judge H. Steven Brown reflected on the 50-year span he has known him: “Dr. Brady has been a fixture both at the college and in the community. He has always been an astute, extremely well-read, highly educated individual and has passed that on to hundreds, if not thousands, of students and people in Casper. We are honored to have him be a member of our community.”
The Casper College Alumni Association established the Commitment to Excellence Award in 1991 to honor those who have given exemplary service to and have made a significant difference in the growth and development of Casper College.
Jon Brady Press Release Summary
- Award: Jon Brady is the Casper College Alumni Association’s 2026 Commitment to Excellence Award honoree.
- Background: A Casper resident since 4th grade, he graduated from Natrona County High School before pursuing pre-medicine at the University of Wyoming.
- Education: He earned an M.A. in East European and Russian studies from the University of Denver (1961) and a law degree from the University of Wyoming (1968).
- Military Service: He served 3.5 years as a U.S. Navy officer.
- Teaching Career: Brady taught at Casper College for nearly 30 years, creating the criminal justice program and the Social Science Seminar.
- Leadership: He served as division chair and was the inaugural president of the faculty senate.
- Community Roles: He directed the Casper Committee on Foreign Relations for 28 years and was a long-time leader of the Izaak Walton League.
- Philanthropy: He helped establish scholarships in his parents’ names and raised funds for the Brady Auditorium.
- Student Legacy: The Jon E. Brady Award in Political Study was established in 2000 to honor the top students in his fields of study.