Eagle Bank and Trust club members encounter wildlife on an African safari
Jamie’s Tribute
In September 2000, Pannebecker was the travel director at another bank.
“Our group’s success had just exploded,” she said. “We’d just had over 500 people at a picnic, and I was beginning to plan our Christmas party when the accident occurred. The accident was a minor accident. Jamie, seat-belted, had reclined her seat to rest on the way home from school, and the car hit a tree in a field going a low rate of speed. But seatbelts are useless when the seat is reclined.
“I immediately closed myself up at home and eventually resigned. Five months later, I left the house for the first time, thanks largely to my old friends in the bank group. A few of them started to call and gently suggest ‘Let’s go to lunch,’ ‘Let’s go to the botanical gardens.’”
In 2006, a local tour company suggested to Pannebecker that if she was ready to go to work, they wanted to recommend her for the Journeys manager at Eagle Bank. She took the job.
“This obviously makes me more appreciative of what I have now, including my husband, Kevin, my pillar of strength, and my budding-actor son, Drew. Tomorrow is never guaranteed for any of us, and that is the attitude I have on trips.
“In fact, ‘I Hope You Dance,’ a song by Lee Ann Womack, is my personal theme song,” she said.
Pannebecker makes it her mission to get the word out about the danger of reclined passenger seats via her website. “Our point is to save people,” she said. “Most people have no idea that it is dangerous and deadly to recline your seat. The website offers testimonials from people who have been permanently injured and news reports about this piece of information that car manufacturers do not want you to know.”
The website, www.snowangel.org, is dedicated to Jamie Snow Pannebecker, tree-climber, model, soccer player, published poet, avid reader, clarinet player and honor student.
