ELWOOD, Ind. (AP) — Twenty-two years after graduating from high school, Angie Collins is now her former English teacher's favorite student.

Collins, 40, donated her kidney this week to Darren Paquin, who teaches English at Elwood Community High School, where she graduated back in 1986.

Collins' husband, Dean, said she offered Paquin one of her kidneys after she learned that Paquin was experiencing kidney failure.

"She knew she wanted to do it and she knew she was supposed to," he said.

Collins, a mother of three, and Paquin underwent the transplant surgery Tuesday at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. Collins was released from the hospital Friday, her husband said.

Before surgery, Paquin was among 814 people in Indiana — and more than 76,000 nationally — awaiting a kidney transplant. Americans awaiting kidneys form the largest group of patients needing transplants, according to the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization.

Collins said she thought and prayed for about two months over whether she would offer to donate one of her kidneys to Paquin, who was her high school instructor in speech and composition.

"I wanted to make the decision to donate first, before I ever found out if I would be a match," she said. "Then, when I made the decision to donate, I knew I was a match. I knew it in my heart."

Thanks to Web sites and public awareness campaigns, patients don't always have to rely on family members to serve as donors, although there is typically an 18- to 24-month wait for organs.

"With the new easier procedures, we have a lot more nonrelated living donors, just friends or a church member who hears about the need," said Dr. Charles Carter Jr., Collins' specialist in nephrology and internal medicine.