Scholarship honors slain art teacher Kristi Redmon

Kristi Redmon(Photo: Jamie Lynn Chevillet/Journal & Courier)

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Friends of elementary school art teacher Kristi Redmon want her remembered for helping people, not as the woman whose life ended a year ago Thursday in a hail of gunfire as she answered her door.

Redmon will continue to help others in her death.

Her friends started a scholarship for Lafayette students pursuing careers in an art-related field, Shannon Lezak and Katrina Boes said.

"We just launched it this morning," Lezak said Thursday morning. "We wanted to launch it on the anniversary of her death."

Boes said, "We've been working on this since July. We wanted something positive to remember Kristi, not the person who did this."

"We had talked about someone doing a scholarship," Lezak said Thursday morning as she recalled the Oct. 12, 2016, shooting of Redmon. "We need to do something for Kristi."

Lezak and Boes were in the courtroom in the wee hours of July 14 when jurors returned a not guilty verdict against Darius Printup, the man prosecutors say killed Redmon as she opened her door at her home in the 1300 block of Ridgeway Avenue.

 

Kristi Redmon died on her front step Oct. 12, 2016, allegedly after Darius Printup shot her because he believed she was concealing the people who stole his drugs, according to prosecutors. (Photo: Ron Wilkins/Journal & Courier)

As the years pass, Redmon and Printup and Oct. 12, 2016, will fall from the public's memory, Lezak said. But the scholarship is a way to remember Redmon for the positive influence she had on Lafayette and its children.

"Kristi's philosophy was life is art," Boes said. "Her goal in life was to help people."

Right now, the scholarship is in its infancy.

Lezak and Boes just received the tax ID number for the scholarship organization, but they still do not have the not-for-profit status.

With the tax ID number, they can solicit for donations. Right now, the donations will finance the process to be certified as a not-for-profit organization, and then the money will be used to finance the scholarships, which will be for Lafayette School Corp. students — the district in which Redmon taught, Boes said.

Donations can be made through the group's Facebook page or through a Go Fund Me account at https://www.gofundme.com/the-kristi-redmon-scholarship-fund.

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Source: Scholarship honors slain art teacher Kristi Redmon