The Carrier Mills-Stonefort CUSD #2 faculty, staff, and administration would like to congratulate the 2026 Distinguished Alumni, Mr. Jim Collins.
James Howard Collins was born in Linton, Indiana, on January 24, 1946, to Harry and Inez Collins. After moving to Carrier Mills, Jim attended 1st through 12th grades in the Carrier Mills school district. While in High School, Jim ran cross country, played basketball, and baseball. He graduated from the Carrier Mills-Stonefort High School in 1964 and attended Southeastern Illinois College on an athletic scholarship where he played baseball and basketball. While attending school, Jim also worked at the A.L. Bowen Children’s Center in Harrisburg. He graduated from SIC in 1967 with an Associate of Arts Degree.
Jim then attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Special Education and a minor in Elementary Education in 1969. He began his teaching career that summer at the Bowen Center, where he taught for the next five years, and he began to officiate baseball, basketball, and football games. During his time at the Bowen Center, Jim earned a Master’s Degree in Guidance & Counseling at SIU, finishing the program in 1973. In the summer of 1974 he took a position with the Wabash Ohio Valley Special Education District where he served as a pre-vocational coordinator for the nine county district for the next six years. In 1980, Jim took a teaching position in Harrisburg where he taught a Junior High Behavioral Disorder classroom for the next four years. At the same time, he went back to school and earned another Master’s Degree, this time in Educational Administration. In the summer of 1984, he was hired as Athletic Director at the Harrisburg High School. Just two years later, along with his AD responsibilities, he became the high school assistant principal. For the next six years he served as the assistant principal, and at the start of the 1992-1993 school year, he became the principal, where he served for the next nine years until he retired at the end of the 2000-2001 school year.
After retirement, Mr. Collins took a part time position working for the federal government as a test administrator for the National Assessment of Educational progress for five years. For the past ten years, he has worked for the Boston Red Sox Baseball organization during spring training as a tour guide at their training complex in Fort Myers, Florida.
While teaching, Jim also worked as a basketball official, football official, and baseball umpire for the Illinois High School Association. For 50 years, he was an official and umpire with the IHSA. He was selected to umpire the State Finals in Baseball in 1979, 1980, and 1981, the State Basketball Finals in 1984, 1985, and 1986, and the State Finals in Football in 1998, 1999, and 2004, making him the first person in the history of the IHSA to work State Finals in those three sports in four different decades.
In 1997, Mr. Collins was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. In 2014, he was inducted into the Southeastern Illinois College Athletic Hall of Fame. On October 22, 2026, he became a Carrier Mills-Stonefort Distinguished Alumni.
Jim has three daughters, Tracy, Kristin, and Kim, two stepdaughters, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren (with two more on the way in March and April of next year). Jim currently lives in Harrisburg, Illinois with his wife, Marsha. Although he spends winters in Florida.