Bishop Felton E. May (left), Chair of the Millennium Fund for Mission, and Maribeth Wilson Collins (right), recipient of Everell Stanton Collins Award.

Maribeth Collins, business woman, civic leader and philanthropist, has a mind for mission in the United Methodist tradition. With her late husband Truman Wesley Collins, she took an active interest in guiding the Board of Foreign Mission (later the General Board of Global Ministries) in allocating the legacy of Everell Stanton Collins to benefit individuals and institutions of Christian mission in all parts of the world. The lives of countless numbers of persons have been changed because of their stewardship of the resources entrusted to them by God . The Collins Pension Fund is the lasting endowment established in the family name with over 1500 United Methodist missionaries fully vested by the plan.

Mrs. Collins was born in Portland, Oregon, a daughter of Clarence True Wilson and Maude Akin Wilson. Her father was a Methodist minister and General Secretary of the Board of Temperance of the United Methodist Church and traveled extensively across the church connection in this ministry. Her childhood and high school years were spent in Washington D.C. where the family resided in an apartment located in the Methodist Building near Capitol Hill. She returned to Oregon for college graduating from the University of Oregon. She has four children, Timothy Wilson and Terry Stanton Collins, twin sons; one daughter, Cherida Collins Smith; and Truman Wesley Collins Jr. Since 1964, at the time of her husbands sudden death, she has been president of The Collins Foundation, a director of The Collins Pine Company, Collins Holding Company, and Ostrander Construction Company. She is a member of the Willamette University Board of Trustees - having served as the Secretary and member of the Executive Committee, the First United Methodist Church in Portland, the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority and the P.E.O. Sisterhood.

Among the organizations which have recognized her public service are Willamette University and theYoung Womens Christian Association of Portland. As President of The Collins Foundation, Mrs. Collins has been significantly engaged in promoting the arts, education, civic endeavors, community service programs, and church related ministries. She affirms the values of both Trumans father and his grandfather...that their money was a trust. I have felt that tradition was there to be passed on says Mrs. Collins. In this spirit of perpetuity in giving, and in recognition of her faithfulness to the mission program of her church, loyalty and loving service to her family and community, the initial distinguished mission recognition award honoring Everell Stanton Collins is presented to Mrs. Maribeth Wilson Collins.