Details from the rich, full lives of the three adults killed Monday at a Nashville elementary school have emerged quickly in the aftermath, but information on the three nine-year-old children – whose lives ended tragically young – has been slower to publicly surface from a community buried in grief.
The violence wielded by the hands of a former student of the Covenant School on Monday marks the 129th mass shooting in the US so far this year, according to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive.
The children who died were Hallie Scruggs, described by an aunt as “always on the go”; Evelyn Dieckhaus, her family’s “shining light”; and William Kinney, whose family has said little publicly so far.
A woman who identified herself as Hallie’s aunt, Kara Scruggs Arnold, wrote on Facebook that Hallie was “incredibly smart, feisty enough to keep up with her three brothers and my four boys”.
Hallie had a “love for life that kept her smiling and running and jumping and playing and always on the go,” Arnold added.
Hallie’s father, Chad Scruggs, is the lead pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, which is associated with the Covenant School. The private Christian school has about 200 students from pre-school through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members, according to its website.
The adults who were killed, employees of the school, were Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school, Mike Hill, 61, a custodian, and Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher.
Peak is survived by her husband and three children.
In a video statement released on Tuesday evening, Bill Lee, the Tennessee governor, said Peak was supposed to have dinner with his wife, Maria, after filling in as a substitute teacher at Covenant.
“Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends,” Lee said, adding that Peak, Koonce and his wife had once taught together and “have been family friends for decades.”
Chuck Owen, who knew Peak from childhood, said Peak’s father was a well-known doctor in Leesville, Louisiana, where the family lived before moving to Shreveport.
He said, “everyone knew her, knew her family” and that she was “just a sweet person from a sweet family.”
Owen added that Peak was a devout follower of God, and it did not surprise him that she was working at a Christian school.
“She told me that she got saved in college and that God’s love changed her life,” he said.
Nashville songwriter Natalie Hemby posted on Instagram that Peak “taught me how to swim. Keep my head above water … which is what we’re all trying to do right now.”
Peak’s family issued a statement saying their “hearts are broken” and called Peak “a pillar of the community, and a teacher beloved by all her students”.
Koonce, the head of the Covenant School, was described by her family as “devoted to her family, her friends and especially the children she cared for”.
She was known to be a woman of deep faith who saw educating kids as her mission.
“It’s what God called her to do,” her close friend Jackie Bailey said.
“We’re in such shock,” Bailey added. “I was looking around my house, and every piece of cross-stitch that I have on the wall, she did – she gave to me.”
One of them said: “A friend loveth at all times.”
“That’s proverb 17:17,” Bailey said. “That’s the kind of person she was. She loved at all times.”
Bailey added: “If there was any trouble in that school, she would run to it, not from it. She was trying to protect those kids … That’s just what I believe.”
Before Koonce took the top role with Covenant, Anna Caudill, a former art teacher, worked with her for almost a decade at Christ Presbyterian Academy, another Christian school in the area connected to a Presbyterian Church in America congregation.
“She was an absolute dynamo and one of the smartest women I’ll ever know,” said Caudill, recalling how Koonce excelled at her day job while parenting her children, pursuing her masters and then her PhD, and writing a book.
Caudill, who grew up in several male-led Christian denominations, said Koonce was the first woman in such a setting to encourage her to keep learning and pursuing her life goals.
“She wasn’t Wonder Woman, but I never saw the two in the same place,” Caudill said.
Friends of Hill, the custodian, said they believed he died protecting the school’s children.
Hill is survived by his seven children and fourteen grandchildren.
One of his daughters, Brittany Hill, wrote on Facebook: “Today my dad lost his life at the Covenant School/Church. A job that everyone knows he absolutely loved. I have watched school shootings happen over the years and never thought I would lose a loved one over a person trying to solve a temporary problem with a permanent solution.”
A GoFundMe was made for Hill’s family by two Nashville parents in the community who called Hill a “hero”. The aim of the fundraiser is to provide money for “funeral services, expenses and to further dedicate to causes close to their hearts to facilitate healing in the Covenant and Nashville communities”.
A separate GoFundMe was started by for all of the Covenant shooting victims’ families by the non-profit organization Victims First. So far, $283,912 has been raised.
Pastor Tim Dunavant, of the Hartsville First United Methodist Church, said in a Facebook post 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.
Hill’s family issued a statement saying, “We pray for the Covenant School and are so grateful that Michael was beloved by the faculty and students who filled him with joy for 14 years.”
Another pastor, Jim Bachmann, said Hill was “one of those people you cannot not like” and that he made a point of learning the names of all the students and talking to them.
Bachmann was the founding pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, which runs the school, and is the current pastor of Stephens Valley Church, where Hill was a member and sometimes served as a greeter.
On those occasions, Hill would “dress up like he was going to meet the president of the United States,” Bachmann said. He added: “Everybody loved Mike, and he loved them back.”
