By HOLLY MEYER, BEN FINLEY and TRAVIS LOLLER
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The head of the Christian elementary school in Nashville who was killed in a shooting there on Monday was described by friends as smart, loving and a rare female leader within a male-led religious culture.
“If there was any trouble in that school, she would run to it, not from it,” Jackie Bailey said of her friend Katherine Koonce, head of The Covenant School. “She was trying to protect those kids … That’s just what I believe.”
Koonce was one of six people killed in the shooting in Tennessee, including three 9-year-old children identified by police as Hallie Scruggs, Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney. Also killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher, and Mike Hill, 61, a custodian.
A friend of Hill’s posted on Facebook that he also believed Hill would have died protecting the children.
Pastor Tim Dunavant, of the Hartsville First United Methodist Church, said that he hired Hill to work at Covenant more than a decade ago.
“I don’t know the details yet. But I have a feeling, when it all comes out, Mike’s sacrifice saved lives,” Dunavant wrote. “I have nothing factual to base that upon. I just know what kind of guy he was. And I know he’s the kind of guy that would do that.”
Friends described Cynthia Peak as a loving friend and natural teacher.
She was “a sweet person from a sweet family,” said Chuck Owen, who told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that they grew up together in Leesville, Louisiana, and that Peak was a lifelong friend.
When he heard that Peak was killed in the shooting, “It took my breath away,” Owen said. “You don’t expect something like this. It just took the wind out of me.”
Peak was also a devout Christian.
“She told me that she got saved in college and that God’s love changed her life,” Owen said, adding it was appropriate that she was teaching at a Christian school.
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