AOPA's Mike Collins honored with posthumous award

Collins, AOPA’s technical editor and director of business operations, died February 25 from COVID-19. He was a 1984 WKU photojournalism graduate. Collins, a private pilot, went on to cofound The Southern Aviator magazine in Raleigh, North Carolina, and he joined the AOPA staff in 1994. His alma mater honored him posthumously with the 2020 College Heights Herald Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism on October 30 of this year.

During a training session with WKU journalism students in 2019, Collins shared aviation photos and stories and told about a 2013 around-the-world flight he made in a Mitsubishi MU–2 turboprop.

“Photojournalism is all about storytelling,” Collins said. “And aviation is full of great stories just waiting to be told.”