Mrs. William M. Collins Jr. This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. Chicago Commons

   www.chicagocommons.org/whowear - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/26/2006   Last Visited: 3/30/2007

   Mrs. William M. Collins Jr.

2. 2. IOTA :: History

   dlp.org/iota/histroy.htm - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/27/2003   Last Visited: 10/12/2004

   The Iota Chapter was founded by a young man Named William Collins, a student of California State University of Sacramento.

3. 3. C O U N T Y E N E W S (dot) COM

   www.countyenews.com/collins.ht - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/8/2002   Last Visited: 12/21/2002

   Bill Collins visits from Uzbekistan
   
   Champion delivers bikes to Honduras
   
   ...
   Bill Collins, Jr. returns from Uzbekistan
   ...
   Bill Collins, Jr. looks the part. Six-three and lean, a permanent California tan probably helped by the Italian blood on his mother's side, full head of wavy blond locks-at 61, Bill can still climb tall, rugged mountains. Bill returned recently to Toulon from a summer archaeological dig that spread across Syria, Turkey and Uzbekistan. A 1959 graduate of Toulon High, Bill is the oldest son of Bill and Norma (The Sunshine Lady)Collins. Each summer Bill heads from his home in Davis, California, for the sands and mountains of the East. With a team of 15 archaeologists and maybe 30 locals, Bill works in hot, dusty, and dry as unbuttered toast excavations from 5 a.m. until 2-3 in the afternoon. After a break, he and his colleagues are back at it until 8-9 in the evening.
   
   One day a week they take off to relax in a nearby city. Bill has long had a Ph.D. in urban planning, using it to earn his bread as a professor at California State University in Chico. Now he is completing a second doctorate, this in archaeology at the University of California at Berkeley. Collins is fascinated by the early bronze period, about 3000-2000 BC. According to Bill, this was the period of the first urban revolution, when civilization was first spreading outside Mesopotamia. "I am fascinated by the spread of trade and cities," said Bill, full of enthusiasm, "and by what one society learned from another about how to build buildings." "I have never been more motivated in my life," Collins continued. "The students at Berkeley are from all over the world. It's terrific cross-fertilization." During the academic year, Bill teaches at Chico and attends seminars two evenings a week at Berkeley. His home in Davis is between the two universities.
   
   A career steeped in languages and world travel After a couple of years at the University of Illinois, Collins joined the Army, went to the Army Language Institute at Monterey, California for 18 months, where he learned Vietnamese. During his 18 months in Southeast Asia, Collins translated and interrogated Viet Cong prisoners in the jungles for military intelligence. After his service, Bill returned to the US to earn all sorts of degrees, from SIU and the University of Cincinnati. Along the way, the peripatetic Collins worked in Mexico City, taught at the universities of Maryland and Hong Kong, worked for the United Nations with refugees in Hong Kong and spent a year in Japan working on regional development issues. Along the way, Collins added working knowledge of French, German and Italian to his Vietnamese and Spanish language skills.
   
   Collins goes "native," or almost After his summer of fieldwork, Collins takes off for places unknown to him. He goes by bus or uses his thumb, traveling pack on his back in a world that is suspicious of Americans, especially now. The "Devil may care" is Collins' attitude. "It's not dangerous. Call yourself a Canadian. There are no problems!" "I try to learn the local language, eat their food, and get to know the local people," Collins said, as we talked over dinner with his parents at Midland Country Club. "This past summer I made friends with several Syrians. They think of themselves as Arabs, yet I argued with them that there own people were not Arabs, but were subdued by a relatively small number of Arabs during the Islamic expansion hundreds of years earlier." The archaeological fieldwork Bill does is paid for by grants from major universities, foundations and National Geographic. Bill and his colleagues pay their own travel to the sites.
   
   Collins family came to Stark County in 1955 Bill Collins, Sr. and Norma left his career as chief engineer for International Harvester in 1955 to buy the Brown Implement dealership in Toulon. "I was just flying too much," recalled the senior Collins. Bill Sr. holds a number of patents related to his engineering work and might have developed more, but he never regrets becoming a small-town International-Harvester dealer. "I made lots of wonderful friendships with my customers," declared the octogenarian, who still plays golf at Midland, which he joined the year the family arrived in town. He recalled the late Ezra Rumbold with great appreciation for getting him out of a financial pickle early in his dealership.
   ...
   Bill is the oldest of seven children and Connie, 40, vice chancellor for development at the University of Missouri at Rolla, is the youngest. Rick Collins lives in Toulon and Aurora and is a pilot for American Airlines. Then there are the twins, Roger and Ronald-and your reporter is lost after that. Bill Sr. declared over dinner "most of your generals and leading politicians came from small towns." Bill Jr. added that Toulon "provided a social balance and opportunities you couldn't have had in bigger cities-and that helps later with self confidence." "I think so much of the direction you take in life has to do with early teachers and parents, of course, and of what they value and what they stimulate you to do." For example, when the family lived in Austin in Chicago and then in Downers Grove, Bill Jr. recalled, "my folks were always taking us to the museums and zoos and cultural institutions."
   ...
   Bill Collins is an adventurer at age 61. And at the same time, he's still the same friendly, caring guy I remember. He's taking his Mom to Italy this next year to see her homeland and relatives there.
   
   A Few of My Favorite Things
   
   Toulon Supermarket
   
   The Pin Cushion