Searching for Stuart Collins

Me, center, and Stuart Collins, right
with the Mayor of Covington, GA in November 1976

The Lord has been good to me.
He has blessed my life with friends who have known me since the cradle, Kindergarten, and a shared hometown. I've also lived in five different cities and towns, and He's blessed my life with great friends made during those stops. He's also blessed my life with people who came and went just for a quick season - a blink in time.

Stuart Collins was one of the latter - here today and gone tomorrow - but make no mistake about it. He was my friend.
You would have loved him.

I met Stuart Collins in the Spring of 1975.
We were both selected to serve as regional lieutenant governors for the Georgia Key Club organization. Key Club was a high school service organization sponsored by local Kiwanis clubs. At the time, both Key Club and Kiwanis Club were all-male. As state lieutenant governors, I represented a region in north Georgia; Stuart represented a region just east of Atlanta. We met that Spring at the state Key Club board of directors meeting.
We were roommates.
He taught me to play Faro - a 17th Century gambling game.
He shared my sense of humor. He shared my joy of playfully needling people. He had a mind of his own, and I appreciated that.

When I was elected state Key Club governor in the Spring of 1976, I convinced Stuart to serve one more term as a lieutenant governor. I appointed him to the five-person Executive Committee. More than once, I went to him for an opinion on a decision we were making. He never failed me, and I listened to him.

During the summer of 1976, Stuart and I were part of a 75-boy contingent that represented the Georgia Key Club at the international Key Club convention in Anaheim. We flew to San Francisco and then took a tour bus south to Los Angeles, stopping at various places along the California coast.

Though almost everyone on that bus was a Georgia Bulldog fan (I was headed there the very next summer), Stuart did not care. He commandeered the bus driver's microphone and taught everyone on the bus all the verses of the Georgia Tech fight song. All of them.

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer—
A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.
Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear.

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.

Oh! If I had a daughter, sir, I'd dress her in White and Gold,
And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.

But if I had a son, sir, I'll tell you what he'd do—
He would yell, 'To hell with Georgia!' like his daddy used to do.

Oh, I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds,
A college bell to put it in and a clapper to stir it round.
I'd drink to all the good fellows who come from far and near.
I'm a-ramblin', gamblin', hell of an engineer!

We booed loudly at first, but he dug in and kept singing, and by the time we reached LA, we were all singing with him, going silent at the Georgia insult, even if we weren't Georgia Tech fans. I knew right then that Stuart Collins would accomplish whatever he wanted in life - big or small. He was willing to stand up, stand-alone, and stand firm. To this day, faced with taking a stand, I think of him in front of that bus.

The last time that I saw Stuart Collins was the summer of 1977. I had graduated high school and was preparing to start college. I was also a member of the youth choir at the First Baptist Church, of Cumming, GA. That summer our choir traveled to the First Baptist Church of Covington. I called Stuart to tell him we were coming.

As we walked out in front of a packed sanctuary, I looked into the crowd. There, near the back, on my left, was Stuart Collins. I was pleasantly surprised that he had turned out. After the concert, we were able to visit. Like the boys we were, we promised to stay in touch, and maintain our friendship for a long time. When I went away to Athens and school, I was swept away by it. I completely lost contact with him.

The internet - and with it, Facebook - has been a powerful tool to reconnect old friends. I have used the internet to find and connect with people I've known all across Georgia, South Carolina, and beyond. I look at Facebook as a giant database of all my friends from throughout my life - right there to connect with - very easily.

For all my searching these past few years, I could not find Stuart Collins. I could not find anything about him. Bored, I would sometimes just spend time searching online for him - nothing. I even reached out to his high school classmates through a Facebook page created for his class reunion. No one was sure what had become of him. Someone thought he had died.

About a month ago, I searched and up came an obituary from 2007 - 11 years ago. It was for Jeffrey Stuart Collins. As I read it, I knew it was my friend's final tribute. He was buried in a small cemetery, ironically, outside of Athens, GA - home of the Bulldogs. He left behind a wife and two daughters.

Just after July 4, I took a day off from work. Vicki and I drove toward Athens, spent the day there, and on the way home, I searched for that church cemetery mentioned in the obituary. The name of the church has since changed. It's located about 30 miles east of Athens on a two-lane road near Lexington, GA. It was a small cemetery. His gravesite was not hard to find - he was buried in front of his dad, who died in 2000.

As I walked up to the gravesite, I could not help but smile. There beside his marker was a bottle of Coca-Cola minted 27 years ago to commemorate Georgia Tech's 1990 national football championship.

I loved that boy. I was blessed by his quick stride through my life, and I thank the Lord for him.

www.scottdvaughan.com