The Kings Daughters Pharmacy Story
From The Beginnings of Kings Daughters Health System
Originally founded by a group of Christian Women in 1893 that originally organized a healthcare focused chapter known as the “Whatsoever Circle” to bring local access to healthcare to Temple Texas. The mission of this Protestant group of women was to provide charity, medical care, and food to the indigent. Temple was a young bustling railroad town like many others at the time in Texas (Ex. Moody, Rockdale, etc.) and initially in 1896 they began operating Kings Daughters hospital originally from a small rented home in Temple.
In the year 1900 Kings Daughters Hospital opened as pictured in both above photos in a 50,000 square foot building on 22nd Street in Temple. The design included a beautiful pond which was stocked with fish in the Central pathway leading up to the hospital. An upgrade in 1913 included installation of a “fireproof wing”. Kings Daughters Healthcare was critical to the growth and development of the Temple area establishing an initial Medical hub of care in the area. Kings Daughters also began a school of nursing providing RN program diplomas and vocational training. The hospital also incorporated Maternity Ward so many locals from Temple Texas may have been born at the Kings Daughters Hospital.
In 1928 Kings Daughters Healthcare System opened a Kings Daughters Medical Clinic adjacent to the hospital on South 22nd St in Temple. The South 22nd Street location was the site of operations for Kings Daughters Healthcare from 1900-1974. In 1961, Kings Daughters Hospital opened an onsite Outpatient Pharmacy which still exists as the only remaining operating entity of the Health System as Kings Daughters Pharmacy.
Kings Daughters Pharmacy was very quickly blessed with the emergence of an exceptional pharmacist (pictured above) named Roy Voges. Roy became the pharmacist in charge of Kings Daughters Pharmacy and helped relocate the pharmacy in 1974 to its new location at 1905 SW H K Dodgen Loop in Temple Texas. Soon after the relocation his wife, Rita Voges, joined the staff at Kings Daughters Pharmacy helping her husband run the pharmacy. In 1974 the Kings Daughters Hospital and Kings Daughters Clinic both also relocated to 1901 and 1905 SW HK Dodgen Loop. In 1983 the old Kings Daughters Hospital location land and building was deeded to Central County Services. Roy Voges led the Kings Daughters Pharmacy for many successful years and filled prescriptions maintaining the health & wellness of the local community in Temple until he chose to retire around 2011. His contributions that established Kings Daughters Pharmacy and helped it to continue to thrive and survive thru many rough times over the years are integral to the present day survival of Kings Daughters Pharmacy.
Due to increased competition and economic pressures of the times in 2009 the Kings Daughters Hospital was acquired by Scott & White Healthcare system and soon after renamed to McLane’s Children's Hospital. (https://ctxfoundation.bswhealth.com/areas-to-support/mclane-childrens/)
Shortly thereafter, by 2011, the Kings Daughters Clinic was acquired by Little River Healthcare. Little River Healthcare acquired other area Healthcare providers including the Cameron Hospital, Rockdale Hospital, and Georgetown Specialty Clinic among others. The Kings Daughters Pharmacy remained independently owned and operated even after Roy Voges retirement in 2011. The times after Roy Voges retired and the Pharmacy lost strong local healthcare partnerships was a downturn in the history of Kings Daughters Pharmacy. In late 2014 the pharmacy was acquired by Luker Pharmacy Management. On April 19th 2015 Anthony Collins was brought in by Luker Pharmacy Management to try to help restore the operational success and return the pharmacy to an economically viable status. However, Luker Pharmacy Management later that year decided to sunset selling all its assets to PharMerica except for the Kings Daughters Pharmacy, which instead in November 2015 was acquired by Little River Healthcare. During this period of rapid growth Little River Healthcare also acquired many other healthcare entities including Crockett Hospital and labs in a variety of states including Pennsylvania, Maryland, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.
In 2017, the Kings Daughters Pharmacy temporarily lost its identity after being renamed Little River Healthcare Pharmacy. Anthony Collins remained the Pharmacist In Charge during this time and his appreciation of everything that Kings Daughters Healthcare had done for Temple & the community remained. During these times Little River Healthcare and its growth created growing pains for the pharmacy and Anthony Collins had to quickly obtain licensure for additional states to service business owned by Little River Healthcare operating in those states. This eventually led to Anthony becoming licensed in 10 states total (Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Michigan, Maryland, & Kentucky). The Pharmacy also utilized these additional licenses to improve access for patients moving into the state of Texas needing to fill Schedule II prescriptions written by prescribers not licensed in the state of Texas. According to Texas law only prescribers licensed in the state of Texas may order prescriptions for schedule II prescriptions drugs to be filled at Texas pharmacies unless that pharmacy has been credentialed and approved by the State Board of Pharmacy with a certificate that “Authorizes said pharmacy to dispense prescriptions for Schedule II controlled substances pursuant to a prescription issued by a practitioner licensed from another state.” With the close proximity of Kings Daughters Pharmacy to Fort Hood our pharmacy took the initiative to complete the credentialing process with the State Board of pharmacy in late 2017.
However Little River Healthcare due to poor operating decisions and inappropriate billing practices quickly ran into financial issues and by July 2018 filed for Bankruptcy protection. What followed was an abrupt closure of Little River Healthcare’s Kings Daughters Clinic and Little River Healthcare Pharmacy on December 4th 2018.
On January 17th 2019, the assets of Little River Healthcare Pharmacy were acquired from Little River Healthcare via Bankruptcy Court by Collins Family Pharmacy LLC including the rights to the name “Kings Daughters Pharmacy” since the pharmacy was not actively operating under that name prior to the bankruptcy. On February 4th 2019 a month after Ascension Medical Group had reopened the Clinic the pharmacy was restored to Kings Daughters Pharmacy by Anthony Collins who was now joined by his wife Katie Collins. Upon reopening both, Michelle Tayler, CPhT (Initials MRW) and Chanin Clark, PharmD, RPh, MBA (Initials CCW), who were both hired back in 2015 came back and played an integral role in the successful relaunch of the pharmacy in 2019.
Kings Daughters Pharmacy returned in 2019 and within 6 months of reopening had became the Primary LTC Pharmacy provider for Luvida Memory Care in Belton Texas. Anthony Collins previously served as the Pharmacy Operations Supervisor for a Long Term Care Pharmacy (Synergy Pharmacy Services) in Pennsylvania from 2011-2014 prior to his arrival at Kings Daughters Pharmacy. Additionally, the pharmacy experienced rapid growth servicing patients in the hospice and palliative care category. Our pharmacist, Anthony Collins, also considers good hospice end-of-life care to be essential and has made it our pharmacies priority to help hospices in the area more efficiently care for their patients. When Anthony was a student in pharmacy school in Pennsylvania his grandmother was in hospice and resided in a local nursing home. She had been on hemodialysis (HD) for over 10 years and was suffering from declining health. The difficult decision was made by her to take herself off hospice and embrace end-of-life. Unfortunately, while visiting her in the nursing home in her final hours of life Anthony had to witness the negative impact of his family member suffering in severe pain and the hospice failing to have pain medication on hand appropriately to maintain comfort. This personal experience has led to his devoted efforts to try to help ensure that our pharmacy will do everything within our power to help ensure this does not have to happen to the hospice patients we serve. Our pharmacy already was servicing hospice patients prior to the closure in 2018 but upon reopening we began working with several new area hospices and are now currently helping over 15 area hospices keep comfort care meds readily available for their patients. Kings Daughters Pharmacy is the only remaining independently owned pharmacy in Temple Texas. We are licensed as a pharmacy in both Texas and as a non-resident pharmacy in Pennsylvania.
2020 brought new and unique obstacles never seen by pharmacy before for us to overcome in the form of the COVID-19 virus outbreak and ensuing government shutdowns. Our pharmacy remained open and delivering prescriptions to local patients that now relied heavier on pharmacy delivery services than ever before. Additional fiscal challenges and obstacles began to hamper the pharmacy even more significantly than ever before as Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) proceeded to levy higher and higher DIR fees (Direct & Indirect renumeration fees) on pharmacy claims. Despite increases in sales volume year over year these fees turned what should have been profitable years from 2021-2024 into fiscal operating loses for Kings Daughters Pharmacy. New legislation finally removed DIR Fees as a weapon to abuse beginning in 2025 but the 1st quarter of 2025 would still allow them and in fact include double DIR fees combining both the 4th quarter of 2024 and 1st quarter of 2025 being leveraged against pharmacies simultaneously. One insurance company however, Caremark, is pushing to continue these fees in whatever capacity they can get away with and still leveraging a $0.34 DIR Fee on all Medicare claims. This is a vast reduction from the fees that were sometimes in excess of a hundred dollars per prescription prior to April 2025 but should still not be allowed. The root cause of PBM abuse is the conflict of interest that our government continues to allow insurance companies (PBMs) that insure pharmacies to also participate as providers in the same line of business for which they insure. This allows them to pay their competitors low and themselves high and eventually eliminate their competition. We hope everyone that uses our pharmacy and appreciates the personalized service independent pharmacy providers will help us drive the narrative to STOP PBM ABUSE. There is currently a bill moving thru the legislature in Tennessee (Bill 2040) that directly aims to ban Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) from owning and operating a pharmacy in their state. We strongly support the passage of the bill with statistics showing PBMs have forced the closure of over 815 pharmacies in Tennessee in the past decade. (https://newschannel9.com/news/local/bill-targets-conflicts-of-interest-as-tennessee-logs-815-pharmacy-closures-in-a-decade) However, CVS is lobbying to stop the passage of this bill stating the would be forced to close their 134 CVS pharmacies in the state. The reality is that statement is not true and they would still have the choice to operate as a Pharmacy Benefit Manager or a Pharmacy Provider in the state but in fact shows their priorities are not in the best interest of patient care.
Kings Daughters Pharmacy
Looking forward to a bright future & many years to come here in Central Texas
The son of Katie & Anthony Collins began working in the pharmacy in 2024 when he turned 16 years old. Brian Collins is an aspiring pharmacy that was recently accepted into Texas Tech where he will major in Pharmacy with plans to graduate in 2032 with a doctorate in Pharmacy degree. Brian Collins currently works as a pharmacy clerk but is actively training at the Killeen College & Career Center in the pharmacy technician program. Brian Collins will be taking the pharmacy technician certification exam in the coming months. He is not the only active employee soon to take the certification exam to convert to a certified Pharmacy Technician. Thomas Jensen who began working at Kings Daughters Pharmacy in February 2025 as a Pharmacy Tech Trainee and plans to take the certification exam soon as well. Kings Daughters Pharmacy has 1 full time certified Pharmacy Technician (Katie Collins) and 2 part time certified Pharmacy Technicians (David Lefler & Noah Skipper). Noah Skipper is also in college as a Pharmacy major in pursuit of a Doctorate in Pharmacy degree. David Lefler is a premed student that is an aspiring physician. Kings Daughters Pharmacy can proudly say the 2 current pharmacists, Anthony Collins (FT), Chanin Clark (PT), have both been staffing the bench here since 2015. In March 2026 another local pharmacist will be joining our staff. Jason Tran who has been the Pharmacist In Charge of Killeen Pharmacy & Compounding Lab from 2004-2026 will be joining our staff as a Staff Pharmacist. He brings additionally compounding expertise to the team and hopefully many patients from Killeen will come visit us here in Temple to maintain their great patient-pharmacist relationship with Jason.
If you have read our full story we thank you very much for your support. We hope to continue to provide excellent service to the community for many years to come. If you have any fond memories, stories, or pictures from any King Daughters Healthcare System entity from Temple Texas or Killeen Texas that you would like to share for future updates to our history please email them to acollins@kingsdaughtersrx.com for inclusion consideration.