Mr. Collins was a 1941 graduate of Trap Hill High School.
He first worked for the Celanese Corporation in Narrows, Va. and then served with the US Navy during WWII. He was a graduate of Beckley College and Concord College where he earned his teaching degree. His first teaching assignment began in a one room school at Maple Meadow and finished a 22 year career at Glen White School. He was a member of the Genealogical Society of Rockingham and Stokes County, NC and the Patrick County, Va., Historical Society. He publsihed a book on the Collins, Fain, Beasley and Dollarhite families. Mr. Collins was preceded in death by three sisters, Desil Winters Martin, Dorcas Cochran Riffe and Mabel Price Roberts. Mr. Collins attended the Church of Christ at Lester.