My brother Kollin was ten when I was born. Being the firstborn of seven, he was basically an adult already when the rest of us got to know him. Kollin has always been a hard worker, and was Dad's right hand man on the ranch.

When I was little, Kollin would call me "Bear Cub", a nickname that I hated fiercely. Not until much later did I recognize the affection behind it. He sat across from me at the supper table, and I would get so mad at him for slouching in his chair and putting his feet on my chair under the table. He was a typical big brother, very annoying but always respected.

Some of my best memories of Kollin from childhood...

We all attended a one-room church school in Brewster, and one day we had a substitute teacher, Glen, who was also our hired man on the ranch and a deacon in our church. The UPS man came to the front door of the church with a delivery, and Glen stepped out of the classroom to accept it. Kollin turned around from his desk and hissed, "Okay, everybody! Come on." And we all left our desks and went outside, around the corner of the building and hid. I was probably in first grade, and I thought it was so funny. Glen came chuckling around the corner and told us we had better get back to our school work.



Kollin got this motorcycle when he was a kid, and it was his pride and joy. The date on this photo says September 1982, so he was thirteen years old. I remember him giving us rides on it, and trying to "pop a wheelie". He would also take all of us little kids out flying kites. He always had the neatest kite, and added miles of string to it, which he marked off the feet in hundreds with black tape so he would know how high his kite was. Battery-operated cars and trucks were very popular then, and they were called "Stompers". We kids would gather around to watch him drive his trucks and crash into other cars with them. He also built things with tinker toys and rubber bands and used small motors and connected them to batteries, like a small windmill that actually turned, for instance.

Kollin drove us to school when I was little, in our old 1978 Ford Purple Pickup. I had to watch my knees when he shifted, because it was stick shift and packed in that old pickup, with Kollin, Kandra, Kellie, and me. I have a vivid memory of coming up over George's big hill with the sun in our faces on the way to school. Mom had made pizza for our supper the night before, and we were taking a leftover one for our lunch that day. Kellie was never quite awake that early in the morning, plus with the blinding morning sun, she was hanging her head down in her lap, sitting beside me. Kollin yelled at her to sit up because he thought her hair would get in the pizza.

At school during recess, Kollin and Mickey Hunt would go outside and talk to truckers on the CB radio that was in the purple pickup. And I also remember Kollin calling the operator on the school telephone, and then giggling and saying nothing when she answered. To me, anything Kollin said or did was the funniest and the greatest. We all looked up to him.



Kollin wouldn't claim to be a horseman, but he did know a lot about ranching, horses, and cattle. In this photograph, he is riding Spider, an AQHA gelding that was generally considered to be Dad's horse. Kollin was mainly in charge of the feeder cattle operation of Dad's ranch. He mixed and weighed their feed, spent mornings and evenings hauling feed to each of the cattle lots. In between feedings, he would check for sick calves and doctor them. A horse was merely a tool for gathering or sorting cattle, and Kollin would never make a fuss over them. He did love cats, and usually had one particular favorite that he would pet and talk to. He also had a baby lamb that a neighbor gave him one spring. It grew up with the cattle and truly believed it was one of them. Dad had a hard time sorting it off when he went to sell its pasturemates one year.

Kollin was usually the one telling us younger kids what not to do...we knew not to lay a finger on one of his vehicles in the shop. He was always fixing up old pickups, or buying and selling them. He started out with an old white pickup that he drove to college. It was called "The White Knight", which was boldly proclaimed on its bugshield. Then he painted it black and decked it all out, with red interior and dark tinted windows. He put a lift kit on it, a chrome roll-bar, and ton of money into it. The popular slogan for Ford in those days was, "Have you driven a Ford lately?" and so Kollin had: "Have you driven UNDER a Ford lately?" lettered on the back tailgate of his truck. After that he had a really nice maroon and gray Ford pickup, then a blue and white four-door pickup, a burgundy Camaro-Z28, and then a black Trans-AM.

Kollin lived at home and worked for Dad until he was twenty-eight years old. Then he started writing to a girl in Oklahoma, went to meet her for Thanksgiving, and brought her home to meet us for Christmas. Julie was the perfect girl for him, and we were so happy and excited for Kollin. They were married in May, and now have two boys and live in Oklahoma where he is in business for himself painting interiors.

Kollin is wise, strong, a great leader, and a wonderful older brother.