John Cory Collins, US Army Veteran

John Cory Collins, known as Cory, was born January 28, 1974. He went to school from K-12th in Muleshoe and graduated in 1992. He attended Clarendon College, South Plains and Texas Tech before joining the United States Army. Cory was active with the US Army from March 1996-January 2000, where he was in the 160th Special Ops, Paratrooper and Ammunition Specialist. He was stationed in Kuwait in 1999 for 3 months. After the military, he graduated from Mary Hardin Baylor with a Bachelors degree in Finance and History. He met his sweet bride, Becky Collins, June 2007 and married August 9, 2008. They then had 4 kids, Caden (14), Cate (13), Brennan and Braxton (9). Cory was raised in the Baptist Church & when they moved to Hereford, TX in 2020, they became active members at First Baptist Church of Hereford, where all 4 kids have been baptized.

Becky has been a teacher for 16 years, 8 of those being here in Hereford. Cory was a sales tax auditor with the State of Texas for 12 years and is now working on his alternative teaching certificate, and teaching for his first year at Dimmitt ISD as a fourth grade Social Studies teacher. Cory is proud to have found his calling and loves teaching.

On September 9, 2024, Cory came home from a day of school and jiujitsu, took a nap and became unresponsive. Even with that being so scary, the family could feel God’s peace and God saying “It’s going to be okay”. The family prayed while the gurney was going out of the house and into the ambulance, even though they were scared to death. Hereford Ambulance took him to Hereford Hospital, where he was sedated and intubated for safety precautions from the unknown. He was transferred later that night to Baptist St Anthonys Hospital in Amarillo. Cory was admitted to the CCU floor to begin testing. Family started coming in to be with Becky for some hard days ahead. September 11 is when they discovered Cory had had a Bilateral Ischemic Thalami CBA (stroke), one of the rarest strokes there is. They never could find what caused the stroke in the first place since he is an active 50 year old man chasing four kids and teaching. They had already started weening him off of sedation and Cory started showing his goofy, stubbornness that we all missed. September 14, Cory was moved to Intermediate ICU, then September 22, they moved him to a regular room, until they could get him moved to the rehab floor, which happened September 27th. Throughout the whole hospital stay, Cory’s personality and eagerness to get better and back home was very evident to all the nurses, doctors, and therapists. Cory loved all of his therapists and loved going to therapy every day. Cory was released from BSA October 19th. He will continue out-patient therapy through BSA, three days a week, until a bed opens up at Moody Neurorehabilitation Institute of Lubbock. Becky was been off of work for several weeks, with Hereford ISD making it possible for Becky to stay with Cory, while her amazing parents helped with the kids at home. While Cory is at Moody, Becky will return to work and travel with the kids to Lubbock on the weekends to spend with Cory. There are still so many unknowns at this time, but the one who does know is Jesus and He has been present in every step of Cory’s healing process. Dimmitt ISD has been so great with Cory’s recovery process, and they look forward to his return in the future. There has been such great progress, so far, that we cannot wait to see what the future holds. We do not know what is in our future, but we for sure know who holds our future. We thank all of our family and friends, from the bottom of our hearts, for all the love, prayers, and support.