University students Stephanie Jackson, 21, and Lindsey Jackson, 18 of Bend have been missing since Jan. 1, when their plane disappeared near Indonesia, and their friends and family members wait in distress to hear more news, hoping they will come home safely.
“I’m trying to be optimistic about it. I feel like she is going to come home. I’m just hoping she does,” Lindsey’s best friend since seventh grade, Megan Buchanan said. The two girls met while attending junior high in Rockaway Beach.
Lindsey, a freshman majoring in marine biology, loves scuba diving, a skill she hopes to use in her career, Buchanan said. Lindsey’s passion for nature and adventure went beyond scuba diving, Buchanan said, remembering the times she went snowboarding at the mountain and camping at the beach with the sisters.
Stephanie, a pre-med major and University senior, is devoted to her school work but enjoys the same adventures as Lindsey, Buchanan said.
“She’s very intelligent and strong-minded,” she said of Stephanie. “She’s really cool to be around.”
The Jackson sisters’ mother, Felice Jackson DuBois of Bend, described Stephanie as “tenacious,” quoted in an Associated Press article last week. “Whenever you would give her something, she was like a dog with a bone. She just wouldn’t let up on it.”
DuBois also said that Lindsey “had an affinity for the natural world, and we always said she was a walking insectorium.”
Buchanan said Lindsey has the same connection with all living things. She cares deeply for her friends and “always knows how to make you feel better.”
The sisters have traveled overseas many times, DuBois said, describing the girls as adventurers.
Family and friends of the sisters are deeply shaken up, living daily with the uncertainty of what actually happened and if the girls are still alive.
“I’m still in shock over what happened; it’s truly hard to believe,” said Erin Crawford, who attended Summit High with Lindsey in Bend.
Lindsey’s Facebook page is lined with “I love you” messages and pleas for her to be safe and come home, right below her self-description which says, “i love life right now, its so much fun!!”
“She’s always that way,” Buchanan said. “She’s always optimistic and finds the positive in every situation.”
Days continue to pass with no trace of either the plane or its passengers, and waiting has become painful and nerve-racking for those close to the sisters.
Buchanan said she can’t wait to see the girls again and knows she isn’t the only one feeling that way.
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