Two women console each other as they walk into Chandlers Elementary School on Tuesday in Auburn. Three teachers were killed Monday in an auto accident near Auburn. A team of counselors is at the small Logan County school to help deal with grieving teachers and pupils. They were teachers who loved to teach and who loved kids, Principal Barry Silvey said. All of them had a desire to see kids grow and learn. Photo by Joe Imel

RUSSELLVILLE Chandlers Elementary School lacked its typical start-of-the-day chatter Tuesday morning as pupils, faculty and staff quietly reeled from the loss of three of their own less than a day earlier. Francisco Aviles, 24, and Paulette Webb, 53, both of Bowling Green, and Debra Bush, 38, of Rockfield were headed home from school around 3:50 p.m. Monday when their car collided with a pickup truck driven by Robert Renshaw, 67, of Madisonville, Kentucky State Police said. All three were pronounced dead at the scene at Ky. 103 and U.S. 68-Ky. 80 just north of Auburn, state police said. Renshaw was treated at Madisonville Regional Medical Center and released, state police said. Aviles had been teaching at Chandlers since Christmas; Bush had taught there for 12 years and Webb for 29, Principal Barry Silvey said. They were teachers who loved to teach and who loved kids, Silvey said. All of them had a desire to see kids grow and learn. State and local crisis teams and school counselors from the Logan County and Russellville school systems were at Chandlers on Tuesday to help pupils and others deal with the loss, Logan County schools Superintendent Marshall Kemp said. Administrators also met with the schools staff before classes Tuesday to outline a course of action for the day, Silvey said. While the school was to remain open as normal, Tuesday afternoons extended school services were canceled, he said. Chandlers, which has about 200 pupils in grades kindergarten through eighth, has a staff of about 50, including 28 teachers and various support personnel, Silvey said. When you have a staff this small, everybody is really close, he said. We can replace the people, but we cant replace the friendships. Funeral arrangements were pending, administrators said.