By Satina Tolman
For The New Era
For Ken and Kathi Collins, music has always been more than sound.
It is a language, a connection, and a lifelong passion that has carried them through joy, loss, and purpose.
At 90 and 71, the couple moves through life in harmony, their days filled with melody, teaching, and service. Together, they have touched the lives of thousands – from classrooms to concert halls – showing that music isn’t just to be heard; it is to be lived.
‘Because It Was Fun’
For Kathi, music began early. Growing up in Southern California, she filled her neighborhood with song and laughter.
“I would stage silly shows on the lawn and do rock ’n’ roll sing-alongs,” she said. “I babysat a lot, and we’d do little vignettes together. It came naturally to me.”
Her parents encouraged her creativity. “We sang at home because my parents sang, and my mom’s whole family sang – not too well, but with a lot of joy,” Kathi laughed. “We’re Irish, so we’re very vocal. That’s when I realized I could take care of children and do a little singing.”
Kathi joined the Glee Club and continued performing throughout her youth. When she moved to Sweet Home in 1975 with her husband’s family, she brought that same musical energy to her new community. She gave birth to her oldest daughter in 1977, and twins – a boy and a girl – in 1981.
After the death of her husband, she spent eight years as a widowed single mother before meeting Ken.
Volunteer’s Heart
Even in hardship, Kathi stayed busy raising her children and serving her community. “I’ve always had this need to be moving, to be helping,” she said. “It’s how I stay happy.”
She poured that energy into Sweet Home, volunteering with programs like Sweet Home Drug Free, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), and REACH (Responsibly Educated Adolescents Can Help). She trained volunteers, helped organize fundraisers, and built relationships with the Sweet Home Police Department.
Kathi also served on the Hawthorne Elementary PTC, worked on neighborhood watch initiatives, and helped coordinate events such as “Shop with a Cop,” the Teens’ New Year’s Eve SAFE Party, and the first Oregon Jamboree. Most of her volunteer work centered on children or education – because that’s where her heart always was.
Life Tuned to Teaching
Ken Collins grew up in Oakland, Calif., where his father, a “very fine musician,” placed a trumpet in his hands when he was 5. “He told me, ‘You’re going to learn to play this,’” Ken recalled. “And I did.”
Though music came naturally, Ken initially pursued other paths. After high school and a year of college, he joined the Navy Air Corps and became an air traffic controller.
“I was good at it,” he said, “but the stress was too much.”
He returned to school, earning a bachelor’s degree in music and a lifetime California teaching credential from California State University, Hayward in 1965. From then on, music became both his career and his calling.
Ken’s curiosity extended beyond performance. Since the 1980s, he has studied brain research and its relationship to music, staying in touch with neuroscientists and educators. “Music builds the brain,” he explained.
“It connects both hemispheres. It helps with math, coordination, and memory.”
In one groundbreaking project, Ken used more than 25 piano keyboard synthesizers to teach every third-grader in his district to play piano.
“They learned fingering with both hands, treble and bass clef,” he said. “That allowed them to use both sides of their brain together instead of like a typewriter or computer, where that connection isn’t made. I even wrote the literature so each student had their own book.”
His first classroom – a Quonset hut in Bieber, Calif. – became a creative laboratory. He designed cartoon characters like “Mr. G” to teach the treble clef and turned the bass clef into a fishhook with the note F as bait. His students learned faster and had fun doing it.
Ken’s bands went on to achieve statewide recognition. In 1985, his Colville, Wash., high school jazz band, a small Class A group, won the Sweepstakes Jazz Unlimited Competition, beating AA and AAA schools from Seattle and Portland.
One of his students earned a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, one of the leading music schools in the nation. That same year, his band performed at the National School Board Directors’ Convention in Anaheim, Calif., where U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was in attendance.
Haig later sent a letter of recognition to Ken’s district, citing “the able leadership of Ken Collins.”
Decades later, Ken still hears from former students who became music teachers themselves. “That was so exciting,” he said. “One teacher told me, ‘You started me with music in third grade at Oak Heights, and now this is my classroom.’ It’s thrilling to see that carry on.”
Destined to Meet
Ken taught music in California, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon before arriving at Sweet Home School District in 1990. He taught at the junior high and high school levels, and served as district music coordinator.
When budget cuts in the mid-1990s left him as the district’s only music teacher, he improvised, writing his own curriculum, collecting instruments, and flooding classrooms with recordings of Mozart, Haydn, and Bach.
“I wanted to reach them when they were young,” Ken said. “That’s where music really takes hold.”
Around that time, Kathi began working for the district as a classroom assistant and substitute. She spent time at Foster Elementary, then at the junior high and high school – where she met Ken. They married in 1994.
When Ken asked what she wanted to do with her life, Kathi didn’t hesitate: “I want to be an elementary teacher.”
“Then do it,” Ken told her.
Encouraged, Kathi started at Linn-Benton Community College, transferred to Oregon State University, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in teaching. She was hired by SHSD in 1999.
Friend and colleague Rose Peda recalled volunteering in Kathi’s classroom: “I was amazed at her skill set. She was teaching a third-fourth split, and the room was table-to-table with kids. She managed everything seamlessly, guiding children and organizing volunteers – I was blown away.”
Ken retired from full-time teaching in 2001, but “retirement” never quite applied to him. He continued to volunteer in Kathi’s classroom, and together they staged “A Play in a Day” and other student performances, including “Peter and the Wolf,” “Smile,” “America the Beautiful” and “Christmas at the OK Corral.”
Giving Back Fully
From 2003 to 2020, the Collinses volunteered with the Albany Salvation Army Corps. They completed FEMA training, attended disaster-preparedness meetings, and built local support networks.
Ken became the volunteer bandmaster, leading music for church services, park concerts, parades, and youth camps. He also played carols at the Heritage Mall and at Salvation Army kettles each Christmas season.
He volunteered to play the National Anthem on trumpet for Sweet Home High School football games and joined the AmVets Color Guard in 2005, performing “Taps” at veterans’ funerals and Memorial Day ceremonies.
One of his proudest works came in 2013, when he composed Veterans of Freedom, performed by the Honor Guard and sung by his friend, the late Herbert Gustafson.
“He had the most beautiful, rich bass voice,” Ken said.
In 2015, while attending an international Salvation Army music convention in London, Ken discovered that many small bands lacked enough players to perform traditional arrangements.
“So I rewrote them,” he said.
He condensed 75 hymns into four parts, making them playable by small groups around the world. He’s since arranged music for ensembles from Europe to Sweet Home High School.
Meanwhile, Kathi continued serving her community through literacy and education. From 2017 to 2023, she helped form the Linn-Benton Community Literacy Partnership, writing grants, training tutors, and connecting adults with reading programs.
“She made it happen,” said Peda. “During COVID, she even coordinated with Oregon State University to bring student teachers to tutor local kids. Without Kathi’s persistence and her ability to motivate people, that program wouldn’t have existed.”
Planting for the Future
After retiring, Ken and Kathi became central figures in Sweet Home Oregon Coalition for Artistic and Scholastic Enrichment (SHOCASE). Ken serves as treasurer and Kathi as secretary. Together, they’ve supported community art, literacy, and music initiatives for children and adults alike.
One favorite project was the “instrument zoo” at the Sweet Home Harvest Festival, where high school musicians introduced younger children to their instruments. “It was a huge success,” said Peda, who is SHOCASE president. “Ken and Kathi just know how to get kids excited about music.”
They also helped organize the first Elementary Music Summer Camp in 2024, funded by a Linn County Cultural Coalition grant Kathi secured. Over six weeks, 39 students from grades two through six learned rhythm, melody, and musical collaboration – skills missing from many elementary programs.
“Without Ken and Kathi, this wouldn’t have happened,” said Peda. “They organized, taught, inspired – everything. Their passion is contagious.”
Sweet Home High School band teacher Lori Tutor agreed. “Watching Ken work with kids is amazing,” she said. “He leans in, they lean in, and everyone’s just soaking it up. And Kathi – she’s always there supporting, even buying pencils for every band student from sixth grade to seniors. They’re both so giving.”
Tutor said that when she started teaching in 2023, her principal told her to call Ken Collins. “Ken was thrilled to be involved again. He really helped my trumpet section get further than they’d been before. He’s an incredible mentor, and Kathi’s just as passionate.”
Tutor recalled a child from the 2024 summer camp running up to her later, eager to join the middle school band. “That’s what Ken and Kathi do,” she said. “They spark that love of music that lasts.”
Life Lessons in Motion
Ken still practices piano scales every day to “keep the neurons firing.”
Kathi laughs, saying he “lives from the neck up,” always thinking, creating, and analyzing. She, meanwhile, stays physically active.
“Being physical makes me happy,” she said. “I have to move – and I love music. So, I move to the music.”
Life, she says, feels like a dance – one full of rhythm, motion, and gratitude.
Together, Ken and Kathi spend time with their six children, 12 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren – with another on the way.
“I always have this image of sifting,” Kathi said. “We need to sift through our lives and find what truly makes us happy. Then find happy people who like the same things and encourage each other.”
Ken added: “Now, I try to think about the essence of things. Keep figuring things out.”
From a 5-year-old with a trumpet in Oakland to a lifetime of teaching, mentorship, and community service, Ken’s story – and theirs – is one of harmony and legacy.
Peda described them, quoting poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To leave the world a bit better… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
She smiled and added, “That’s what Ken and Kathi have done for this community. We are so fortunate to have them.”
