Local family honors teen killed in crash

NORTHEAST - September 18, 2011

A fundraiser was held Sunday for the family of Timmy Connor, an Archbishop Ryan freshman fatally injured in May after being struck by a car near the school.

Former classmates say Connor had a passion about sketching things.

"He used to bring out notebook out of nowhere and just start drawing," said Katherine McCarty.

The victim's father, Martin Connor says the image on fundraising t-shirts is his son's work.

"It's a self portrait. This was one of his ideas for a comic book that he was progressively working on," he said.

The owners of Katie O'Donnell's Irish Pub hosted the fundraiser. They did not know the Connor family but there was an old school tie.

"We just opened up in April and the tragedy happened in May, we literally got a phone call telling us what happened. We graduated from Ryan so we had a connection there, then we are parents and I couldn't imagine losing a child," said Sandy Greenhalgh, co-owner of the pub.

With that Greenhalgh enlisted friends to help plan the fundraiser

Martin Connor is a police detective, so their efforts were also joined by the Fraternal Order of Police.

The victim's family already has plans for how the funds will be used.

"We have some outstanding bills. We are going to put some in a scholarship fund that's already in place at Ryan and make a donation to his grade school, Our Lady of Port Richmond," said Georgette Connor, the victim's mother.

The goal is to raise $10,000. One of the items to be auctioned off includes memorabilia from the final space shuttle flight donated by Commander Chris Ferguson a graduate of Archbishop Ryan.