On Dec. 6, 1999, I came to work at the Local, where the newsroom was like a wake. Everyone in the offices of the Local and the Chestnut Hill Community Association looked depressed, and there were some tears shed.

The reason? After 11 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 4, 1999, Russell G. Byers, 59, a Chestnut Hill resident, Yale University graduate and conservative columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, was stabbed to death at the Wawa convenience store, then on West Highland Avenue near Germantown Avenue.

“My purple silk pantsuit was covered in blood — my husband’s blood,” Byers’ wife Laurada wrote in her recently published memoir “Laurada - My Life of Adventure, Tragedy, and Purpose.” “I was trying to staunch the flow of blood from his knife wound until a police officer pulled me away and said ‘Lady, he’s dead. Can’t you see? He’s dead.’”

“Before my husband was murdered in front of me, I had led a privileged life in Bronxville, New York,” she recounted. “I went to a boarding school in Connecticut, traveled the world and married W. Russell G. Byers from a prominent Pittsburgh family — not as wealthy as the Mellons who were his in-laws for a time — but who was wildly charismatic, beautifully mannered and always curious about everything. Our honeymoon was in five-star hotels in Europe.”

According to news reports at the time of the murder, the couple had stopped to buy a pint of ice cream. The killer, a drug dealer who would later receive a life sentence in prison, fled empty-handed, without so much as a penny.

Byers, who previously had worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and as an aide to City Councilmember W. Thacher Longstreth, also a Chestnut Hill resident, wrote about urban issues like crime and corruption for the Daily News for 10 years.

According to Laurada Byers, two weeks before the journalist’s death, she had brought up the topic of starting a charter school, and her husband warned against it, saying the project would consume her. Two years after his death, Laurada Byers did open the Russell Byers Charter School — on the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — at 19th and Arch Streets.

For 25 years now, Laurada Byers has been the school’s most passionate supporter. She opened the school in Spring Garden with just 120 students up to second grade; it now has about 750 students through eighth grade. And she has accomplished this despite Parkinson’s disease, cancer and a hip replacement.

“We have kids from 41 zip codes,” she told the Local with great difficulty while in her wheelchair during a recent in-person interview in her Center City condo, where she moved after 27 years in Chestnut Hill.

“A high percentage of our graduates go to college, and those who do not are still well prepared to contribute,” she said. “I had no idea what I was getting into, but it has been a joy.”

The City of Philadelphia honored Laurada Byers with a proclamation in May of this year for her 25 years of service with the school.

“I’m old now,” Byers, 76, writes in the memoir. “Or rather, my body is old. It has betrayed me in spectacular ways that sometimes make me laugh at the audacity of its sneaky, stealthy treachery: Parkinson’s, cancer, COPD (and that’s the one that’s going to get me in the end. My Lucky Strike habit wasn’t so lucky after all.”)

The book has earned a treasure trove of ecstatic reviews. For example, former Mayor and Gov. Ed Rendell has written, “As someone who joins her in the Parkinson’s challenge, I admire her tenacity so eloquently written about in this book. Laurada’s incredible will and drive in the face of her disease should serve as an inspiration to all who face adversity.”

During our interview, Byers said, “I’ve had a great life. Of all the things I have done, though, the most rewarding was starting the charter school. I love the kids. Russell and I had talked about starting a school to provide real opportunity for inner city kids whose families could not afford a private school. Russell said you can’t do this. Then he died.

“But I am not satisfied. I want it to be the best school in the U.S,” she continued. “We have a strong board that I’m very proud of. The board chairman is a former student here.

“Several thousand students apply to get in, so those who get in are lucky. About 150 of the kids are special needs. We do better with them than the public schools. We have been raising about $1 million a year, but the district takes 25 percent off the top for each kid. We don’t skim off the best kids. We use a lottery.”

“While managing my challenging health issues, the rewards of the school have continued to sustain me,” she said. “If someone had told me that I would start a school, I would have thought that was impossible. I want to leave the world telling others that anything is possible. Don’t forget that!”

“Laurada” is now available on Amazon and through Sunbury Press. For more information, visit lauradabyers.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.