Classmates, teachers mourn death of Pittsylvania County accident victim

Tyler Michael Perrow fixed a classmate’s shoestrings Friday to make them more fashionable after his teacher, Sandra Lovelace, commented on the girl’s stylish outfit.

“Tyler said, ‘Mrs. Lovelace, look, I made her into more of a fashion plate,”’ Lovelace said. “I said, ‘Tyler, you’re a fashion plate.’”

“Oh, Mrs. Lovelace, you better stop picking on me,” he replied.

“Tyler, you know I love you,” Lovelace said.

Just then, the intercom called his bus.

Walking out of the classroom, Tyler looked back over his shoulder and grinned.

“I love you, too, Mrs. Lovelace,” he said.

Tyler died Saturday after the 1997 Isuzu Rodeo he was riding in flipped several times on Crane Road in Pittsylvania County. The sport utility vehicle ran off the right side of the road, and the driver overcorrected.

Virginia State Police will charge the teenaged driver with reckless driving and failure to maintain control, said Sgt. C.W. Owen.

Lovelace taught Tyler this year in her seventh-grade civics class at Tunstall Middle School. She said Tyler was fun-loving and vibrant.

“He was the type of kid that everybody in the seventh-grade knew and everybody in the seventh-grade loved,” she said. “He had this little twinkle in his eye every day.

“We all love Tyler. We’re a family, and the kids know that. They feel that.”

Stevens has taught for 37 years, she said, and she’s never experienced the death of a student while child was in her class.

Tunstall’s principal, Rebecca Stevens, said Tyler was a good student, who loved sports. Stevens saw Tyler daily in the school’s halls.

“He was a very self-confident young man,” she said. “He had a lot of friends. He had a fantastic sense of humor.”

Teachers, faculty, students and counselors spent Monday talking about Tyler.

“That day we cried,” Lovelace said. “All 400 kids got off the bus in silence.”

Adults talked openly with students all day, and Lovelace said she told the boys that it was OK to cry.

“I said to a little boy, ‘A man who cries shows strength,’” she said. “And he just burst into tears.”

Stevens said a lot of the students talked about trips to Skatetown that they took with Tyler, who loved to skate.

Lovelace said she also heard students talking about Tyler after school.

“I know Tyler is in heaven,” she heard one boy say. “But you know what, I bet God made him cut his hair.

“The other boy said, ‘No he didn’t. Don’t you know Jesus? He had long hair.’”

The middle school students are “mature beyond their years,” Lovelace said about how they responded to Tyler’s death.

“I wish everybody in the city of Danville and Pittsylvania County could see how the kids have handled this,” she said.

Stevens and Lovelace said that the students and faculty are organizing a memorial service at the middle school. The service was the students’ idea, and they want to release red balloons during it.

Red is Tyler’s favorite color, and it’s color they wore Tuesday.

“I know we’re going to miss Tyler,” Stevens said. “He was a tremendous force at this school.”