Pam
Pamela Pangburn 1964 - 2011
On August 16th Pam and I were riding our tandem bike when a 86 year old driver of a car was distracted and swerved and hit us. I received a broken neck and Pam died.
Photos to the right: Pam does up her hair, puts on the make up, and dresses up.
Photo Left: Pam, Brian & Jada enjoy splash mountain July 11, 2011Photos Center & Right:Pam's happy place - under water. Nothing made her more happy than to scuba dive.
Eulogy for Pam as recited by Brian Pangburn August 27, 2011
Anyone here feel sorry for Pam? Not me – no way! Because anyone here who really knew Pam knows that she lived her life to her fullest. Pam excelled at anything she wanted to. Pam has been more places, done more with her life than 99% of the people in this world. Pam did not want a pitty party when she died. We had talked about it since we both were skydivers. She did not want a funeral. She said “why can’t people just remember all the happy times they had?”
Pam and I first met when I was 18 years old when I was down visiting my father for summer vacation. She and her first husband to be and myself went tubing down the salt river. When knew each other over the years and after Tim had split up with her I started dating her. We were married December19th & 20th, 1992. (there’s a story behind that) We knew then we had something special. All the conversations we had up to that point we noticed we had so much in common. So much in fact that it seemed strange that we had not found each other sooner. The one thing we both longed for was to travel, something neither of us had done a whole lot of. She already had two wonderful children.
Photo Left: Pam hold's the Aussie's helmets while waiting for a load in Russia 2010Photo Center: The 2010 U.S. Parachute TeamPhoto Right: Pam coming down a mountain outside of Flagstaff Arizona.
Our first trip together was Labor Day weekend in 1993 when we found some cheap airfare $135 round trip to New York City. From riding the subway everywhere to walking the streets of Harlem and the Bronx, Pam thought this travel thing was remarkable. That trip was remarkable from the expected to the unexpected. On the way home our flight was cancelled out of Chicago so we were stranded in Chicago for 24 hours without any change of clothes, no jackets, or our toothbrush. It was raining and we took the “L” downtown to go in search of some jackets. We found Giordano’s Pizza which quickly became our favorite pizza. So much in fact that we would for the remainder of the years purposely schedule trips through Chicago and purposely look for two hour lay overs so we could land, call for pizza, run out of the terminal, grab a taxi, pick up a pizza, and run back to the airport to continue our transcontinental flight.
It was also back in ’93 that Pam did her first skydive. For those of you who do not know Pam, she was scared of heights. To get her on the roof in those days you had to have a darn good reason and now way would she go near the edge. But she loved the people at the drop zone, they were always happy and Pam said she just would rather be around the happy people than the people who were unhappy. It took Pam 9 months before she got enough courage to do her second jump, and on that second jump she had her first cut-a-way. After that jump they became more frequent and she decided she wanted to get her skydiving license.
Photo Left: Rain will not keep us from riding RAGBRAI in 2008Photo Center: Pam swimming with the sharksPhoto right: Chris, Pam and Brian at a demo jump
Photo Left: Pam drinking her first German beer in GermanyPhoto Center: Pam doing video at a demo jumpPhoto Right: Pam on a mountain high above the clouds in Columbia waiting for the clouds to break to paraglideIn 1995 we drove 6,500 miles with her daughter Jenny and Alan (both 9 years old) who was an exchange student from Mexico. We drove through all the Western United States and 3 Canadian providences including 11 US national Parks and 2 Canadian Provincial Parks.
The following year we drove 6,000 miles again, this time South all the way across Mexico and down into Belize. We discovered the Mayan ruins and fell in love with them. We decided to save all our vacation the following year and took off the last three weeks of December and the first 3 weeks of January (6 weeks total) so we could drive down again and spend a full month in the rain forest and visit as many Mayan ruin sites as possible. Driving our ’88 pick up through Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and the Yucatan with archeological maps of unexcavated and excavated ruin sites. We never paid more than $9 a night for a room the whole trip – most of the nights were $6 – 8/night. Now how many wives would put up with staying in $6/night hotels for over a month straight? Well Pam did and said it was her favorite vacation ever. Feel sorry for Pam? Even when we almost lost our pickup in 1996 to hurricane Boris in Oaxaca when our truck almost slid off the mountain – Pam still wanted to go back the next year. (we did return during the ‘dry’ season – were not stupid….)Photo Left: Pam in our back yardPhoto Center: Pam buys a plane and flies me to Sedona for my birthdayPhoto Right: Brian & Pam in Sedona for lunch
Photo Left: Pam and her friend Cuqui from MexicoPhoto Center: Pam flies our plane to MexicoPhoto Right: Wendy, Kiara, and Pam in FL for world record jumps.Photos Below: Brian and Pam on their first RAGBRAI first day getting ready to camp. Brian & Pam in Washington DC jumping into a concert Pam flies her plane to Iowa for Christmas
Brian & Pam in Russia and Germany 2006
above Pam in Hawaii 2004 Brian & Pam above Machu Pichu in Peru Pam feeds a camel at the Wildlife Zoo