Regenia Collier

Regenia Collier is one of those rare people who turned their hobby into their job. The director of publications for Lee therefore looks forward to coming to work everyday.

Collier came to Lee in 1992 from Tomlinson College as the SACS liaison for the school. “I wasn’t looking for a job but it was the Lord’s working because when they called, I turned them down. Then, two weeks later, the announcement was made that Tomlinson College was closing,” she said.

She came to Lee in the liaison capacity and remained in it for quite a while, adding to that responsibility the job of coordinator of data management doing external reporting for the university.

All along, however, Collier was doing graphic design for the university, a hobby she had been cultivating for years and was eager to parlay into a more professional capacity despite the fact that she had never had any formal training in the field. “I’ve always worked with computers,” she said of her interest in graphic design. “We did massive SACS reports and that was mostly typesetting. We began scanning photos, and I found I could manipulate photos. I read a lot of books, and I played. That’s pretty much how it happened.”

She was made the director of publications in 2004, the first person to hold the newly created position. “It just became more and more requested for Homecoming and Celebration and things like that,” said Collier. “So the job began forming itself.”

Now, three years later, Collier has made herself indispensable to the university through her impressive work in publications and is loving every minute of it. “Even though everything I have is very deadline-oriented, I like that everything has a ‘ta-da moment’, a final completion. It’s like an unveiling. I like that we get to celebrate a lot,” she said.

In her spare time, Collier and her husband of thirty years, Herschel, own a local bed and breakfast called Candlewycke Manor off of Eureka Road. The enterprise began as a project for her mother when she moved in with them. “My mother retired, and she didn’t like retirement. She got bored,” said Collier. “We tried to get her interested in a number of things. We had always gone to bed and breakfasts with our family, and she always said she’d like to own a bed and breakfast. She had sold her property, and we had sold ours, to merge two households. So, we found a home and started the business.” That was in May of 2001. Now, they’ve had over 5,000 guests visit them at Candlewycke.

“I love meeting the people. They come from all walks of life. We’ve had world-wide professionals come see us; we’ve had families, writers, and missionaries. We’ve had weddings on the grounds and celebrating events for people,” said Collier. “It’s just nice to meet people and share their lives. It gives us insight into the world we’re not able to see.”

People are an important part of both of Collier’s jobs. The people are what she loves about Lee as well. “Lee is part of my family, a big part of my family,” she said. “I love the people and the atmosphere. I look forward to coming to work, and I think that is a blessing to be able to say when you wake up, you can’t wait to get there. I love what I do, I love the people I work with, everything about it.”

Amazingly, Collier still finds time to act as the president of a local small business consortium called Mind Your Own Business which provides information to small business owners in the area.

She also enjoys reading mysteries and enjoys singing (she even traveled with the Royal Heirs, a gospel group, from 1976-1982 throughout the southeast). She and her husband have two sons, Steven, who teaches high school in Florida, and Jeffrey, who is doing graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Posted on - 1/16/07