A Springfield woman was a substitute at Santa Fe High School in Texas just before a mass shooter killed 10 people and injured 13 others.
Lisa Truitt was a teacher at South Vienna School in Clark County for 16 years before moving to Texas with her husband and youngest daughter.
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She had been subbing in the Texas district for three months – both as teacher and receptionist.
Although she was back in Springfield for her son’s high school graduation on the day of the shooting, Truitt knew many of the victims and the shooter.
She said 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis was consistently late, so she would write him passes to class.
"I didn't see that in his eyes," Truitt said Wednesday. "I didn't see that he would be capable of that."
Truitt also regularly ate lunch with the two substitute teachers who were killed, Cynthia Tisdale and Glenda Ann Perkins.
“Those two substitute teachers -- they left their legacy,” Pruitt said. “The kids loved them. They were wonderful women.”
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Truitt will return to Texas next month, but the shooting has not curbed her enthusiasm of being a teacher and returning to the classroom.
“I can't stop what I'm doing and be afraid to continue being there for kids, because I'm afraid something's going to happen,” she said.
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