Celebrating
‘City
of
Roses’
BLACK
HISTORY
MONTH
Volume XLVII • Number 6
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • February 7, 2018
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Rev. W. G. Hardy Jr.
Dynamic
Pastor Dies
Rev. W. G. Hardy
Jr. was humble
and inspiring
reau’s mandatory retirement age kicks in,
Collier is trading in his badge and gun for a
hunting rifle and fishing rod.
Collier was born in Massachusettes, but
grew up all over the world, bouncing from
place to place as a U.S. Air Force brat. Ger-
many, Florida, and Guam were just some
of places he spent time in. It was hard for
by D anny P eterson
t he P ortlanD o bserver
Rev. W. G. Hardy Jr., a humble spir-
itual leader from Portland’s African
American community who inspired so
many others with his dynamic sermons
and lifelong service to his church and
community, succumbed to a three year
battle with kidney cancer on Friday.
Hardy, 60, was the senior pastor of
the Highland Christian Center in north-
east Portland for the past 22 years, a
third generation preacher from a family
of church pastors that included his late
father and grandfather.
A thoughtful teacher and a spiritu-
al advisor to countless members of the
community, he helped grow a small
Highland United Church of Christ con-
gregation on Northeast Ninth and Go-
ing Street into one of the city’s largest
C ontinueD on P age 4
C ontinueD on P age 6
Special Agent Pete Collier outside the Portland FBI Field Office where is retiring after an illustrious 27 year career as an
FBI agent.
The Greatest Honor
FBI agent looks back on exciting career
by D anny P eterson
t he P ortlanD o bserver
Stand offs with ant-government mili-
tias, tracking down domestic terrorists, and
thwarting bank robberies might sound like
the perfect recipe for a popcorn thriller, but
for retired FBI special agent Pete Collier, it
was just another day at the office.
“It’s been the greatest honor of my life
to work within these walls and to work on
this mission,” Collier, told the Portland
Observer.
February marks Collier’s first month of
retirement from the bureau after 27 years
with them. In that time, spent in San Fran-
cisco then later Portland, he’s worked on
a number of high profile cases that have
captured the nation’s attention as much as
it has federal law enforcement’s.
Now, at 55, just two years before the bu-