CHESAPEAKE - Even in fading, old photographs, State Senator Oakley C. Collins still radiates the charisma that helped make him a beloved legislator for nearly a half-century.

With his almost-trademark thick-rimmed glasses and ear-to-ear grin, the Senator was always surrounded by people who seemed almost magnetically drawn to the tall man with the thick, dark hair.

It has been more than a decade since State Sen. Oakley C. Collins passed away, but the legacy of the "father of Ohio vocational education" lives on.

That legacy will take center stage at 3 p.m. Saturday when Collins Career Center, the county's vocational school that was named in honor of the politician that fought for education and Southern Ohio for half a century, hosts a public ceremony to dedicate a plaque to honor Collins' life and work.

"I don't think there is any way to describe how important Sen. Collins was to Lawrence County," Collins Career Center Superintendent Steve Dodgion said of the individual he called a "great man."

"Š He was truly a champion for Lawrence County and he was a champion for education through and through."

Dodgion said he and the board decided it would be fitting to have something on campus to explain how the Lawrence County Joint Vocational School District was named in Collins' honor and what he meant to all.

During his numerous terms, Collins sponsored legislation that created vocational education within Ohio and tirelessly fought for funding so that children in rural areas would be provided the same rights and privileges as others across the state.

For Collins' family, it is a tribute that means much to them personally but is meant to be shared with all the people of southern Ohio that the Senator worked so hard for.

"I am extremely proud of Dad, as all the family is. He was such an inspiration to me and so many other people," Ironton Municipal Judge O. Clark Collins Jr. said. "The lessons he taught us were all the great lessons in life. He was just a great figure, larger than life. He probably touched more lives in southern Ohio than anyone I know."

"He was a fighter for southern Ohio and education. He just had a passion for it," Collins Jr. said. "He was an old-time politician that enjoyed helping the public and enjoyed helping people."

Not a day goes by the younger Collins does not think of the man who had humble beginnings on a Decatur dairy farm and worked his way through life as a miner, farmer, educator and coach and ultimately a politician that served three House terms and seven Senate terms.

And almost as frequently, the judge runs into someone who has yet another story to tell about Collins that illustrates his legacy.

"I had a doctor come up to me in Jackson and say, 'I just wanted to meet you because if it wasn't for your father I probably wouldn't have been able to get into medical school,'" Collins Jr. said. "Those are the kinds of stories you run into time and time again."