Jo Ann Collinge, 85, passed away on June 15, 2024, in Shoreline, Washington, from pulmonary disease after a long illness.
Jo Collinge (nee Hardee) was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 14, 1938. She grew up on Edison Street, which, in her own words “was the kind of neighborhood in which a mother, hearing her child cry [from the street], would shout without looking, ‘Hit him back!’ It tended to age one a bit.” Drawing on this worldly experience, she began acting on local programs hosted by the Detroit Public Schools radio station. At the ripe age of 12, she began teaching broadcast acting techniques to other students and eventually became a teenage member of the staff at her high school. She also penned an occasional column for the Detroit News’ Teen Page.
Her dream of radio superstardom faded while attending the University of Michigan, where she discovered her love of governance and a deeper commitment to reporting — serving for three years as an officer on the Student Government Council and, in her last two years, as a senior editor for the school’s newspaper, The Michigan Daily. She graduated in 1960 with a degree in English and flirted with the idea of pursuing law, but decided she’d had enough of school. Three days later, she became a Detroit News reporter. In her seven years with the News, she rapidly moved from being a writer for the society page to a traffic court reporter to eventually chief of the city-county bureau—one of the first women to break through that barrier. Drawing on her early exposure to poverty, injustice, and at-risk families, Jo became known as “the one who handled welfare stories.”
During this period, she also explored and expanded her love of theater and, in particular, musical theater. She often traveled to New York to catch the latest shows on and off Broadway–The Fantasticks and Fiddler on the Roof were favorites. Her final years at the newspaper were spent reporting from South Vietnam during the war (again a first), where she wrote a weekly column “Our Girl in Vietnam,” reflecting on the conflict and the country’s social, economic, and cultural elements.
In 1966, while reporting from Saigon, Jo met Robert A. Collinge, an officer with the U.S Embassy. After a whirlwind courtship during which they discovered a shared love of history, music, politics, droll humor, and art, they married in April 1967. A State Department policy at the time necessitated Jo’s resignation from the Detroit News. From 1967 to 1975, she accompanied Rob as a dependent spouse, working closely with him as a volunteer speech writer, publications editor, and community liaison—bringing to life the adage “two for the price of one.” Together they worked to advance policy initiatives in Calcutta and New Delhi, India, and Johannesburg, South Africa. The couple also spent two years in Washington D.C. where in 1970 they welcomed their daughter, Lee— joining Rob’s children from his first marriage, John and Deb Collinge, making a blended (if far flung) family.
Jo aspired to become a Foreign Service officer, not only to be salaried for the work she’d been doing for free but also to continue serving her country the best way she knew how. She was thwarted until the policy barriers against joint assignments fell. In 1976 she began her official career with the State Department working for the Bureau of Public Affairs under the Carter administration. Her first and only overseas assignment during her foreign service career was as a counselor officer in Barbados from 1978 to 1980. After returning to the Bureau of Public Affairs in Washington D.C., her work focused on communicating Reagan-era foreign policy initiatives to domestic audiences by coordinating speaking engagements and media interviews for senior members of the State Department — a challenge the staunch Democrat handled with grace, grit, and a nightly cocktail.
In 1984, Jo began a coveted one-year fellowship to study the nuclear freeze movement in the Pacific Northwest. The family settled in Seattle and began a long and loving connection to the region. At the end of the fellowship the family returned to Washington D.C. and Jo returned to the State Department’s Office of Opinion Analysis and Plans where her teamed promoted the merits of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and nuclear disarmament. Her efforts earned her a Superior Honor Award as the first Chief of the Media and Principals Division.
A constant shadow on the family was Rob’s heart condition. After he was eventually forced to take early retirement and their daughter graduated from high school, Jo moved with her family back to the Pacific Northwest - settling this time in Bellingham in late 1988. There she delighted in rediscovering eagles on the wing (or sitting in trees), white tipped mountains and whales. Upon leaving the State Department, which strictly prohibited staff from campaigning for political candidates, Jo gleefully volunteered for the disastrously unsuccessful 1988 Dukakis-Bentson presidential campaign, the loss did not diminish her interest in politics, just campaigning. In 1989, she became the assistant director for the Office of Communications at Western Washington University, helping to elevate its profile across the state and country. She also partnered with trusted colleagues to manage multiple crises—snowstorms and student rallies—that shut down the campus. Jo dove into local community service, first helping to coordinate the YWCA’s annual Northwest Women’s Hall of Fame event honoring Whatcom County women for outstanding community contributions, then joining the board and eventually becoming president.
During her tenure, she and the Y’s board worked to evolve the century-old organization’s partnerships with area social service nonprofits and government agencies and restructure its finances to enhance emergency and transitional housing and support for women in crisis. She was also an engaged member of the Bellingham chapter of the League of Women Voters, preparing questions for League-hosted local candidate forums and observing Bellingham Port and City Council meetings. Jo re-joined and supported the Whatcom County Democrats, through which she met and admired many dedicated community leaders from both sides of the aisle. She retired from Western in 2003 and focused more fully on her community work including serving as editor for the book 100 Years of Challenge: Whatcom Women and the Bellingham YWCA published in 2008. She enjoyed spending time with her friends, the books waiting for her on her bedside table, the county’s many parks and visits with her daughter and Portland’s many brunch spots.
Eventually, failing health and a desire to be nearer to her fiercely loving family compelled her to move to the Seattle area, where Lee had relocated, and into assisted living in 2020. Bellingham never left her heart.
She is survived by her brother, Lt. Col (rtd) James Hardee; daughter, Lee Collinge; her son, step-children John Collinge and daughter, Deborah Collinge; granddaughters, Rachel Ruder and Olivia Sinclair; grandson, Samuel Collinge; two great-granddaughters and a great-grandson. She was preceded in death by her husband, Rob, in 1998.
A celebration of life event is being planned for the fall in Bellingham.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.11.3