PRINCIPAL DAWN HOCHSPRUNG (Newtown Bee)
COURAGE: Intrepid music teacher Maryrose Kristopik, shown at work in the days before horror engulfed her school, held the killer at bay outside her door and saved 15 innocent children and herself. (Twitter)
They did all they could to stop the carnage.
Brave educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School risked everything and gave their very lives to stop crazed shooter Adam Lanza and shield innocent children from the hail of gunfire.
Lanza had arrived with murder on his mind at 9:30 a.m. Friday, but found the doors locked.
The 20-year-old would not be deterred and unleashed a barrage of bullets, seemingly at random to shatter a front window and climb inside.
Two of the teachers — Victoria Leigh Soto, 27, and Anne Marie Murphy, 52 — actually turned themselves into human shields to protect their young students after Lanza invaded their classrooms and cruelly opened fire.
The fusillade began when school administrators were just starting a morning meeting. Suddenly, they heard the sick “Pop! Pop! Pop!” of gunfire.
Principal Dawn Hochsprung reacted like a lioness protecting her cubs. She ran out of the office and lunged at Lanza — and died when he trained his gun on her and opened fire.
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Hochsprung, 47, had always put her students first.
The mother and stepmother to five daughters, she was an energetic and dedicated administrator at the school since 2010.
Hochsprung, who had just entered a Ph.D. program, used her Twitter account nearly every day to tout her student’s accomplishments or speak about educational policy.
She was beloved by the students for her passion and ability to foster a playful environment — like creating “Wacky Wednesday” and bringing her poodle to school.
“She was really nice and very fun, but she was also very much a tough lady in the right sense of the word,” friend Tom Prunty told CNN. “She was the kind of person you’d want to be educating your kids.”
Mary Sherlach, the school psychologist, also valiantly confronted Lanza at Hochsprung’s side, and was cut down.
Sherlach, 56, had worked at the school for 18 years and was getting ready to retire.
She had two daughters — ages 25 and 28. Her husband, William Sherlach, is a financial adviser in Fairfield, Conn.
“She was very sharp and she had a very nice sense of humor,” her son-in-law, Eric Schwartz, told the Newtown Patch News Web site.
“It’s not fair that she never gets to hold a grandchild. She went from getting up and going to work like any other day to . . . gone.”
Natalie Hammond, 40, also was in the meeting and may have tried to use her body to block Lanza from entering the office — likely keeping him from killing others inside.
She was shot in the arm and leg and was recovering yesterday after surgery at Danbury Hospital.
After hearing the shots, a custodian ran through the hallways sounding the alarm, and other educators quickly scrambled to protect their young students, locking classroom doors as they waited for the gunfire to stop.
As the janitor ran, someone switched on the intercom — alerting others to the chaos and likely saving many lives, a teacher said.
With the sound of gunfire ripping through the building, teachers ordered children to hide in closets, under desks or huddle in corners. One teacher pushed students into the kiln room.
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School-library clerk Maryann Jacob was with 18 fourth-graders when they heard the noise.
She coolly had the kids crawl into a storage room, which they locked and barricaded with a file cabinet.
To keep their minds off the horrors that were unfolding just feet away, she turned their attention to coloring. “We set them up with paper and crayons,” she said.
Soto, who started teaching at Sandy Hook five years ago, heard the gunfire and told her terrified students to hide inside a closet.
Once the bullets started flying, she tried to shield the youngsters from the fusillade by jumping in front of them.
“She put herself between the kids and the gunman’s bullet’s,” her cousin, James Wiltsie told the Wall Street Journal.
“That is how she was found. Huddled with her children.”
The baby-faced first-grade teacher died alongside her students — such as Jesse Lewis, 6. Before the shooting, the class of youngsters had been looking forward to making gingerbread houses.
“Vicki was a great individual with a huge heart, and put students first. Unfortunately, that is how she lost her life,” Wiltsie said.
“I wanted people to know that she was a hero for what she did.”
Luis Soto, 27, who had been friends with the victim since they were kids, said, “She went out like a true hero. She hid the children and confronted him.”
Soto, who is not related to the victim, said even as a child all she wanted to be was a teacher.
“She definitely fulfilled that dream.”
After slaughtering Soto’s first-graders, Lanza continued his senseless rampage.
He focused his deranged attention on two classrooms, where fresh-faced 6- and 7-year-olds were just beginning their day.
Primarily using a Sig Sauer rifle typically reserved for combat action, the twisted Lanza pumped bullet after bullet into the helpless kids.
Murphy, 52, was a special-education teacher who also died after putting herself in front of bullets to protect vulnerable students.
Her body was found in a classroom covering children who died, said her father, High McGowan.
A wife and mother of four, she loved art and working with kids.
“She died doing what she loved,” her mom, Alice McGowan, told Newsday, adding, “She was a very good daughter, a good mother, a good wife.”
Other staff members killed were Rachel Davino and Lauren Rousseau.
Davino, 29, was a fun-loving woman who loved “Star Wars” — and even posed with a pink light saber for a photo on her Facebook.
Her best friend, Lia Michelle, posted, “There aren’t many cats like you out there, miss Rachel Marie . . . The whole world is loving you right now . . . you are gorgeous, and I’ve never seen such magical work.”
Rousseau’s life ended after enjoying what family called “the best year of her life.”
After years of working part-time jobs and as a substitute teacher, the 30-year-old finally landed a permanent teaching position at Sandy Hook in October.
“I called her ‘Busy Bee,’ ” her boyfriend, Tony Lusardi, told the News Times in Danbury.
“She called me ‘Worker Bee.’ ”
On Friday, the couple had planned to see “The Hobbit” before attending a party.
Lauren had already made cupcakes with pictures of the actors on top of each one.
But as the day wore on, no one could reach her.
Her mother, Teresa Rousseau, believes Lauren may have been assigned to a doomed kindergarten class.
Rousseau grew up in Danbury, where she lived in her family home with Teresa and her mom’s partner, William Leukhardt.
She was a graduate of the University of Connecticut and got her master’s degree in education from the University of Bridgeport.
“She was like a kid in many ways,’’ her father, Gilles Rousseau, told the News Times.
Music teacher Maryrose Kristopik has also been credited with saving the lives of 15 students with her quick-thinking heroics.
She barricaded the music-room door while Lanza pounded on it in a desperate bid to enter.
“The shooter kept banging on the door screaming, ‘Let me in! Let me in!,’ ” a parent told the Daily Mail.
Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello, Kate Briquelet and Post Wire Services