A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Glenda Rice Collins is an alumna of the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, and College of Fine Arts, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. She has completed advanced study in classical ballet, arts appreciation, gifted education issues, grantsmanship, and total quality leadership. Having written extensively for: Oklahoma Magazine in Tulsa, as arts columnist for the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise and recent news features for The Oklahoman,  her arts-focused features appear on newsok.com, and in Greater Tulsa Reporter Newspapers archives. Collins currently hosts her own website, glendaricecollins.com, publishing online “news features related to various dimensions of the arts world.”

Professional experience in journalism and public affairs includes employment at Sea World, Inc. headquarters in San Diego, CA, as writer, public relations assistant and military public affairs liaison; and as writer and editorial assistant for Southern California Holiday magazine.   She has served as technical assistance consultant for the Ohio Arts Council Sponsor Development Program, in radio and television public affairs, and as freelance writer during numerous military relocations from coast to coast, as a career Air Force spouse, while raising sons John and Chris.

Ms. Collins is a certified facilitator of the “Investment in Excellence (IIE)” cooperative empowerment training program of the Pacific Institute of Seattle, WA and served as a member of the IIE Facilitator Network at the Office of Total Quality, Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), Los Angeles Air Force Base, CA.  A leader in volunteerism, she served as president of the Military Spouse Career Network, Los Angeles/Long Beach chapter, and as editor of The Networker.  She was a contributing writer for Astro News at SMC, and a community partner for the SMC Office of Public Affairs, and San Pedro Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

 The granddaughter of Mexican sculptor Carlos Antonio Cortés, Ms. Collins is a seasoned arts and education advocate and artist with continuing education in grantsmanship. She is a  graduate of the 1996 Leadership in the Arts certification program co-sponsored by the University of Oklahoma College of Fine Arts and the University Center at Tulsa (UCAT), and a member of the Tulsa Goals for Tomorrow, Cultural Affairs Task Force, sponsored by the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and INCOG.

As a national spokesperson for gifted and talented education issues, Ms. Collins served as vice-president and program chairman of the Florida Association for the Gifted (FLAG), Northern Palm Beach County chapter, also editing the FLAG Newsletter.  She was appointed to the Palm Beach County Superintendents Committee on Gifted Education, as parent representative, positively impacting numerous reform issues during the yearlong intensive study.  Later active in the West Central Ohio Coordinators Consortium, Ms. Collins supported the formation of the Able Learners Alliance in Dayton, OH, serving as grant writer for a statewide invitational Conference on the Education of Able Learners, sponsored by Centerville City Schools and the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio.

With advanced training in classical ballet, and as a former member of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City civic ballet companies of her youth, Glenda revels in the international progress Tulsa Ballet has made, and the growth in the now burgeoning Brady Arts District  of her hometown, where she (with the former Tulsa Civic Ballet) and the major touring performing arts companies of the past (including the famed Ballets Russes) performed in the historic Tulsa Municipal Theater, now known as the  Brady Theater, or “old lady of Brady.”