Tyrone Thompson was a fierce education advocate who had mentored hundreds of disadvantaged youngsters. So when he was shot and killed by two teenagers in an attempted robbery last June, his family and friends were stunned by the irony.

"Those teenage suspects were the kind of boys Tyrone would have tried to mentor, if he had met them," said his brother Anthony Thompson, CEO of Kwame Building Group. "And if he had met them, I know he would have touched them."

On Jan. 14 the Thompson family provided a mentoring opportunity for hundreds of troubled St. Louis students when they unveiled the Tyrone Thompson Institute for Nonviolence. The grand opening event was held  at the St. Louis Community College William J. Harrison Education Center at 3140 Cass Ave. in St. Louis, where the Institute will be based. 