SAN ANTONIO — A outpouring of love and support for an English teacher and cheer coach from Jasper, as those who knew her mourn a life tragically cut short.
Ayden Rose Burt was shot and killed by a stray bullet early Tuesday morning while she was sitting in the patio of Smoke Skybar in downtown San Antonio.
"She was supposed to leave Tuesday morning," said David Burt, Ayden's father. "So we were going to meet at the beach at Crystal Beach for the rest of the week.”
Burt was in San Antonio for the Texas High School Coaches Association conference.
The only child of a single father, the loss is incomprehensible.
“I’m in disbelief," David Burt said. "I’m not sure I’m fully comprehending it. You know, everywhere I walk, I see her. I’m never going to hear her voice again. I’m never going to see her smile. I’m never going to see her reaching her potential. It’s just heartbreaking.”
At 28 years old, Ayden was carrying the torch as a third generation educator and coach, but her father had no idea she'd be following in his footsteps.
"She originally went to UT Tyler, and was going to be an athletic trainer and so she was a biology major," he said. "Then after that, she decided she didn't want to do that, so she became an English major and two thirds of the way through that she decided she wanted to teach."
Her father, an educator himself, was the former principal of Jasper Junior High, where Ayden was an English teacher.
"She loved on her kids," Burt said. "She'd set their expectations and made them rise to them. She was old school. She was not soft on her kids, but they loved for it. She had a knack for reaching the kids that nobody else could reach in forming those relationships.”
Ayden Burt was going to teach sophomore and senior English at Jasper High School, where she was also going to be the head powerlifting and assistant track coach.
San Antonio Police are still searching for a suspect. Anyone with any information is asked to call SAPD's homicide line at (210) 207-7635.
The Jasper ISD Athletic Department is taking donations here for Burt's family.