News Service

11-06-09

ISU Gold Star Hall ceremony honors fallen Korean War soldier from Melbourne

AMES, Iowa -- A Veterans Day observance at Iowa State University will honor seven former students whose names have been added to the Gold Star Hall, the war memorial in the university's Memorial Union. One was a soldier from Melbourne, Charles Emery Collins, who died in the Korean War.

Former students are eligible for name-placement in Gold Star Hall if they graduated or attended Iowa State full time for one or more semesters, and died while in military service in a war zone. The university has recently identified several who had not been identified in previous searches. As names become known, they are added to the wall and the soldiers are remembered in the Gold Star Hall Ceremony on Veterans Day.

Iowa State is able to memorialize Collins on Veterans Day thanks to the help of Judy Nanke, Marshalltown, a member of the Central Iowa Genealogical Society; and Collins' cousins, Virgil and Sharon Snell, Milbank, S.D., all of whom gathered photos and provided information about his family, life and military career.

Collins was the son of Violetta and Emery Collins, whose farm northeast of Melbourne included Belgian horses. A 1949 graduate of Melbourne High School, Collins studied animal husbandry at Iowa State fall quarter, 1949. The following June, he entered the U.S. Army.

Collins was a member of F Company, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. He was serving as a cook on the front lines on Heartbreak Ridge when he died on May 22, 1952, at the age of 21. He was awarded a Purple Heart, as well as six other medals.

For his service, he will be remembered at Iowa State University, where his name is engraved on the wall of the Gold Star Hall in the Memorial Union.

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