By: Nicole Hamilton
Enquirer staff writer

WHITE OAK - When Star Bank needed a model for their "Five Star Service" advertising campaign, they found one in customer-service representative Pat Merritt Reams.

Known for her effervescent personality and the warmth she spread around the service center, her face graced the pages of the Cincinnati Yellow Pages and other print media.

"When supervisors came to the call center, they remembered her," said her son, Steve Reams of White Oak. "She was always telling jokes. When she started chemotherapy, other patients changed their treatment dates to be able to be there at the same time she was."

Mrs. Reams died Wednesday at Mercy Franciscan Hospital in Mount Airy of cancer. The longtime White Oak resident was 70.

Raised in Newport, Mrs. Reams moved to White Oak in 1960.

She stayed at home, raising her son for five years, and then began working for First National Bank - now U.S. Bank - downtown, first as a bookkeeper and later as a customer-service representative.

Her career with the bank spanned 39 years and two mergers - as First National became Star Bank and then U.S. Bank.

She was a longtime volunteer for WCET Action Auction, and Habitat for Humanity.

Until the early 1990s, when she was diagnosed with cancer, she donated her type-O negative blood to Hoxworth Blood Center.

A fan of her brother-in-law, Tony-nominated actor Lee Roy Reams, she attended his performances on the East and West coasts.

Her husband, Russell Reams, died in 1979. Her sister, Roberta Merritt, also died before her. .

Along with her son, she is survived by a brother, Jerry Merritt of Hyde Park; and a granddaughter.

Visitation will be 4-8 p.m. Monday at Allison & Rose Funeral Home, 1021 Madison Ave., Covington.

Service will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the funeral home. Burial will be in Big Bone Baptist Church Cemetery, Union, Ky.

Memorials can be made to American Cancer Society, Hamilton County Unit, 2808 Reading Road, Cincinnati 45206.

E-mail nhamilton@enquirer.com