Teacher: Shooting victim fun-loving and hard-working

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A 24-year-old woman who was fatally shot in front of the Sioux Falls hair salon she managed while trying to protect an employee from what police say was an abusive boyfriend was hardworking and loved having fun, her former teacher and coach said.

Ken Kvaale, a teacher in Ellsworth, Minn., said Amanda Connors was a joy to have in the classroom. He said Connors and his daughter Rachel were best friends in school and in the years since Connors’ 2007 graduation.

“Amanda was just like she was in athletics. She was just a sparkplug in the classroom, too, there with the answer,” Kvaale said. “She was an ‘A’ student for me.”

According to police, Connors was leaving Cost Cutters on Tuesday when she saw Tyrone Smith, 38, with his children in the parking lot. From her car, she phoned the four employees in the store, including Smith’s girlfriend, and then pulled her car up and exchanged words with Smith, who was standing in the salon doorway. Authorities say Smith then shot Conners in the head, causing her car to drive into a parked SUV, and then entered the store, fired another shot and zip-tied his girlfriend and the other workers. They say Smith let the four workers go a half-hour later, and then shot himself in the head.

Connors graduated from the Stewart School of Hairstyling four years ago with a promising career ahead, said senior instructor Penny Thompson.

Thompson said Connors was a woman of integrity with a positive, upbeat and hard-working attitude.

When Thompson heard about the incident at Cost Cutters, she had a feeling that it was Connors who stood up to the gunman.

“I don’t know what courage Amanda had to face at that moment. And until you’re in that moment, who knows what you can do?” Thompson said. “But once again she did everything right, just like she’s always done.”

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