When I asked VTDigger.org reporter Alan Panebaker in June why he was leaving the online news outlet to take a job at American Whitewater, his answer was simple: “It’s just a really sweet opportunity because I’m really focused on white-water kayaking.”
An avid kayaker since age 12, Panebaker told me the new gig advocating for river conservation and access was “a dream job.” After I wrote a short item about his departure, he sent me a joking email demanding a correction:
I want to point out an error in your Fair Game column this week. You wrote American Whitewater is: ‘a conservation and recreation nonprofit dedicated to protecting totally gnarly white-water runs.’ It’s actually dedicated to protecting ‘sick, baller whitewater of the dopest kind.’
See you on the river, brah.
Panebaker died on the river Wednesday — the West Branch of New Hampshire’s Pemigewasset River — doing, as his former boss Anne Galloway wrote, “what he loved best.” Galloway and New Hampshire Public Radio report that Panebaker and two other experienced kayakers were paddling a steep, narrow gorge near the Pine Sentinel Bridge in Franconia State Park when Panebaker’s boat became stuck between rocks, causing him to go under.
A 2005 graduate of the University of Montana School of Journalism, Panebaker worked for newspapers in Oregon and Alaska — and freelanced for Canoe & Kayak magazine — before heading east to attend Vermont Law School, according to a Digger bio. After passing the bar, Panebaker opted to return to journalism briefly, becoming Digger’s first full-time reporter last fall.
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Paul, thank you so much for writing this and sharing that snippet — it still makes me laugh. Alan was a baller dude of the dopest kind as well. We’ll all miss him.