Teacher says student killed at Louisville bus stop was ‘really a leader’

By Natasha Williams

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    LOUISVILLE, KY (WLKY) — Freshman English teacher Emily Kolb is remembering the life of 16-year-old Tyree Smith, a Jefferson County Public Schools student who was shot and killed at a west Louisville bus stop.

“Overwhelming sadness and it’s kind of transitioned to anger for myself, and, I know, a lot of teachers at school,” said Kolb, who has worked at Eastern High School in Middletown for six years.

Smith was one of her students.

“When you roll into classes in the mornings, your freshman come in — they’re a lot of time really sleepy — and when Ty would come in, he would literally just light up the room, he had really dynamic energy,” she said.

And Kolb said his positive energy impacted those around him.

“Where a lot of times you talk about students that are energetic, it’s code for a bad behavior issue, with Ty, that wasn’t it, he was on task,” said Kolb, as she looked down at her hands.

She went on to describe his personality even further.

“He was really a leader. We do a lesson called Socratic discussion where kids sit in a circle and we talk about really higher-order questioning and I could walk out of the classroom and let Ty lead that lesson,” Kolb said.

But as Kolb and others replay the senseless shooting that killed him and injured two others at the bus stop in the Russell neighborhood, she goes to a dark place.

“When you got a student who is doing all the right things — it was 6:15 in the morning — that he is trying to come to school, it’s unbearable to think about,” she said.

A memorial around the flagpole at the school is in memory of Ty, a way for students at Eastern High School to honor him and for those who knew him and loved him to show that they missed him.

“I had students hit the floor literally hit the floor crying, I had students say, ‘I had no idea what happened’ because it wasn’t necessarily in the Middletown community, I greeted them at the door like I always do when they come in and you just wrap them in a bear hug,” she said.

For now, she and other teachers at the school are offering a moment of reflection at the beginning of their classes.

“The empty chair is like a slap in the face. I walk in and you kind of just want to feel his energy. It will definitely have a ripple effect. This is something that will impact these students for years to come, this loss,” Kolb said.

It’s a loss to all of Louisville, especially those who know just how far Ty could have gone and what he could have done had he lived to finish his dreams.

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