Would Have Never Guessed: The Story on Mrs. Collins “KAS Librarian”

By Laila B. Abdeltam

Mrs. Collins, the KAS Librarian, didn’t particularly have the average librarian life. Mrs. Collins was born a small town of 2000 people called Ronan, Montana. She lived there with her family. She had 5 brothers and 5 sisters, which she was the youngest. Her eldest sister was 20 years older than her.

From a very young age Mrs. Collins was introduced to music. She started playing the piano at age 6 and she attempted learning the guitar but decided it was best to stop for she had no talent for it. She also sang for Mike Mansfield at age 6. She grew up at the high school in Ronan and after she graduated she and a friend decided to travel to a bigger city with even bigger dreams. She went to a college in Denver, Colorado called Metropolitan State College where there she studied music education; vocal emphasis. At college she joined with the Californian Girls Choir where the ages varied from 18-20 with her being one of the eldest and being soprano II & alto. The choir toured Europe for 6 weeks visiting various countries and staying in homes of different families.

Mrs. Collins had her first job at a catholic school teaching music to k-8 when she was 26. She wasn’t paid a whole lot but it made her realize that her calling was teaching music. She then traveled back to Montana and taught at a school in Hartbutte where she taught k-12 choir. She would eventually find her way to meet Mr. Collins the love of her life. She then settled down, get married, and have a healthy boy named Clyde (oldest) and an adorable dog-named Rainbow. They lived in a beautiful house 3 hours from Glacier National Park. Then later she had another boy named Maxwell (who goes to KAS and is in 7^th grade).

This international librarian has taught at A LOT of different places!