MEDIC ALERT FOUNDER SEES ORGANIZATION TURN 40.

Byline: Elizabeth Leedon Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

She cocks her head, smiling, instinctively playing to the camera.

The light from the setting sun outside the Medic Alert office gently fingers deep wrinkles in an ageless face. A cloud of white pear blossoms behind her matches a cloud of white hair.

She is posing for publicity photos, as she will so often this 40th anniversary year of the organization she and her physician husband founded.

Chrissie Collins, 90 in July, has had and continues to have a full life - full of children, four of them; grandchildren, eight of those; great-grandchildren, 11 so far; and friends, countless friends all over the world.

She moves easily, hears well, drives her own car wherever her interest beckons and travels the country and beyond as Medic Alert's ambassador.

In Chicago, this summer, the American Medical Association will award her its citation for distinguished service, its highest nonmedical award.

At home, this warm spring day, in the two-story colonial house she and her husband, Marion Collins, built 57 years ago, she perches on a sofa, a diminutive figure in a turquoise suit with a perky bow at the neck.

And, she allows herself to concede, she's just a little tired.

She shrugs.

``I have my days, my old lady aches and pains. But on the whole, I'm doing pretty well.''

She has just finished hosting two sets of grandchildren - five of them, all under the age of 6.

She laughs.

``I tell you, last night, I could hardly get up the stairs.''

But this house has known more exhaustion than any group of mere grandchildren, however talented, could even begin to produce.

It was the birthplace of Medic Alert.

Here, diligent family members and friends sat at long picnic tables in the family room, and, under the watchful eyes of the doctor's mounted Texas longhorn head, sent out bracelet after bracelet to those who had read the tale of Collins daughter Linda in a national magazine:

How a tetanus injection on a camping trip nearly took her life; how her parents had designed a special bracelet inscribed with her allergy so that it would never happen again; and how others, too, could order a similar piece of jewelry from the Collins family.

As orders literally swamped them, ``we realized we had something that was too big for a family,'' Chrissie Collins remembers, and Medic Alert moved to a two-room office in downtown Turlock with a small crew to do the packing and shipping.

In 1981, Medic Alert moved again, this time into its own building, completely paid for by donations from grateful emblem wearers.

Here, the organization maintains the database that will give any doctor treating a Medic Alert member an immediate medical history by telephone - at a cost to the emblem wearer of an initial $35 then $15 per year.

Current membership: a worldwide 5 million.

But by 1981, when Medic Alert moved to its own building, Chrissie Collins' husband had been dead four years, and she had taken over the public relations function of his role, while the management function had passed on to others. But a grateful organization had named her a lifetime member of the board of directors.

By the time her husband died in 1977, she already was deeply enmeshed in trying to keep the organization going.

A flicker of a shadow crosses her serene face, as she remembers: ``He was ill for quite a long time. I tried to help out as much as I could. I was down there nearly every day trying to keep things going. We hoped he would be able to take up the reins again. But it wasn't to be.''

She and her husband were high school sweethearts.

Her family immigrated to Turlock from Great Britain in 1912.

His moved to town in 1919.

After he died, ``at first, when I was really lonely, I'd call somebody and say, `Let's go do this or that.' I was used to being busy.''

A singer, an opera buff with a degree in music from the College of the Pacific in Stockton, she flirted with the idea of moving to San Francisco, ``where I could go shopping and to operas and plays.''

``But then, I thought, I couldn't go to the opera or a play every night, and I'd get tired of shopping. I thought, my friends are more important, and I've always been glad that I stayed.''

In younger days, her children kept her busy.

``I think I always put my family first,'' she reminisces. She was a leader in Girl and Boy Scouts and also worked with the American Friends Service Committee and local music groups.

When her husband died, she became Medic Alert's ambassador to the world.

``For a while, I was chairman of the international committee. During the 1980s, I was in England three times for Medic Alert. Then I went down to South Africa. I still get Christmas cards from people there. I feel that Medic Alert has brought me a great many friendships.

She has outlived not only her husband but most of the other early leaders who lent their verve and imagination to Medic Alert. And if she had it all to do over, she would probably not do anything differently.

``Medic Alert has given me,'' she says, ``a feeling of accomplishment in life.''