Oklahoma native and Cherokee dancer Bud Collins was one of 38 donors honored on this year’s Donate Life Rose Parade float. The donors were selected from across the nation and were memorialized with floragraphs, pictures composed of flowers and other organic materials.

Collins, a Tulsa native, was the father of Claremore resident Jo Dawn Mathews.

Mathews said she was surprised and happy to learn her father would be memorialized on the float. Shortly after Collins’ death in 2003, his daughters learned he had elected on his drivers license to be an organ donor.

His bone marrow saved the life of a 3-year-old boy, she said.

Mathews said she and her sisters were pleased to know their father’s gift had gone to prolong another life.

It seemed a fitting memorial for the man who had embraced life, living it to the fullest and giving so much to family and friends.

Born in 1933, Collins was multi-talented. He played baseball, was a musician who played bass and piano, a bull rider, welder, sculptor, and jewelry maker who worked with traditional Native American turquoise and silver jewelry.

A Southern Straight dancer, Collins and his daughters spent a lot of time at pow-wows.

“Everybody knew everybody at the pow-wows,” said Mathews. “It was very safe, like one big family.”

Mathews is one of three daughters. She jokes that er daddy really wanted three boys and instead got three girls.

“How do you think I got the name Jo Dawn?” she said.

Her father taught her to hunt and fish. Dancing was the glue that held the family together and tied them to tradition and their ancestors.

“There’s a lot of pride out there dancing with your family,” she said. “He told us to dance for the ones that have passed on. It made it more meaningful.”

Both parents did beadwork and were artistic. Jo’s mother, Betty, also painted scenes on rocks, incorporating the texture of the rocks into part of the pictorial. Collins made detailed metal sculptures using his skills in welding and solder.

He was also an accomplished jewelry maker and kept his daughters well-adorned. The girls grew up wearing elaborate, large pieces of his hand-crafted turquoise and silver jewelry.