OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Kirk Moore heard the first gunshot from inside the Pauls Valley High School office.

It was loud enough to fill the hallway. Loud enough that, nearly two months later, the sound remained one of the clearest pieces of a day he could not stop replaying.

Outside the office, an armed former student was pointing a handgun at two children.

Moore ran toward him.

On April 7, 2026, 20-year-old Victor Hawkins entered Pauls Valley High School with a pistol. Surveillance footage showed the former student approaching the building, entering after another student opened a door and raising the firearm toward two students inside.

Moore, the school’s principal, came charging out of the office.

“When I hit the door, he was standing about right here,” Moore later told News 9 while walking through the hallway. “There wasn’t much room, much time for him to react. It was so fast. I saw the gun and just ... when I ran into him, we fell right there.”

Moore tackled Hawkins onto a bench and drove him to the floor.

Then the gun kept firing.

The bullets struck the tile beneath them, sending shattered pieces of the floor into the air. Smoke, dust and muzzle flashes filled the hallway as Moore fought to keep the pistol pointed down.

“It worked out perfect that I was able to get my left hand on his right hand, which had the pistol, and I was able to hold it down,” Moore said. “He just continued shooting into the floor.”

He remembers watching the tiles explode around his body.

“I can remember seeing the tile as he was emptying that pistol,” Moore said. “I could remember seeing the tile blow up as the bullets had hit it.”

Assistant Principal Chad Chronister heard the shooting from his nearby office and tried to reach Moore through the hallway.

“I threw my phone down and tried to go out this door,” Chronister said. “I made it to about here and started seeing a lot of concrete. A lot of muzzle fire. Concrete flash. I mean, it’s just like smoke.”

The gunfire forced Chronister back.

He found another route through the office, reached the struggle and helped Moore restrain the shooter. Chronister moved the gun out of Hawkins’ reach, and the two administrators held him down until law enforcement arrived.

The entire confrontation lasted only minutes.

It could have taken lives.

Instead, no students and no other school employees were physically injured.

Moore was shot in the knee.

He did not know it.

“He didn’t know whether he was shot or not,” Chronister said. “I knew he was because I was on top of him. I could feel it running down my leg before he could feel it run down his.”

Moore felt no pain until a Pauls Valley police officer placed a tourniquet around his upper thigh.

“And I thought I was going to die,” Moore said. “That’s the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.”

As first responders carried him from the school, Moore’s thoughts turned to his family. His daughter called, and he tried to reassure her.

“Listen, I’m going to be fine,” he told her.

He also thought about his parents, who lived close enough to see the emergency vehicles surrounding the school without knowing whether their son was alive.

Moore had spent 37 years working in Pauls Valley schools. He was born and raised in the town of roughly 6,000 people, more than 50 miles south of Oklahoma City.

The children inside the building were not strangers.

Some of the first responders who rushed to save him had once sat in Pauls Valley classrooms themselves.

“When you’re in education, you’re not there to make money,” Moore said. “You’re there for kids, and you’ll do anything for your kids.”

That day, he did.

Moore later said he acted on instinct.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he told CBS News. “I just knew, I was just running to get to whatever was going on.”

For nearly four decades, Moore had completed school safety training and emergency drills. But when he saw a gun pointed toward his students, there was no time to work through a procedure.

“That all goes out the window,” Moore said.

While Moore and Chronister restrained him, Hawkins made a comment about the school, according to the administrators.

“The only thing that I heard him say was he hated the school because it never did anything for him,” Chronister said.

Moore also remembers the first words Hawkins directed toward him as he was held against the floor.

“He told me I was a ‘lucky bastard,’ laughing,” Moore said.

Moore never answered.

Hawkins was later charged in Garvin County District Court with shooting with intent to kill, two counts of feloniously pointing a firearm and two counts of carrying a weapon to a public assembly. He pleaded not guilty.

Law enforcement reported that Hawkins had previously attended Pauls Valley High School. Moore recognized him but said Hawkins had never been sent to his office for a significant disciplinary issue during his three years at the school.

Despite being shot, Moore said he continues to pray for him.

“My hope is that he can find some comfort,” Moore said. “He’s a challenged kid, mentally, intellectually.”

That prayer does not erase accountability.

“I want him to be treated fairly, but at the same time, I want him to be held accountable for his actions,” Moore said.

The two students most directly affected by the shooting did not return to the school building for the remainder of the academic year. They completed their classes online while the district worked to provide them with help.

“We’re getting them help,” Moore said. “It’s just a tough situation, but our kids are pretty resilient for the most part.”

The surveillance footage spread around the world.

Millions watched Moore sprint through the office door and throw his body into the path of an armed man. Cards, emails and text messages began arriving at the school. Some continued to arrive every day nearly two months later.

“You can’t just not think about it,” Moore said.

On May 21, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt presented Moore with the Heroic Oklahoman Award at the state Capitol. The recognition honors Oklahomans who display extraordinary heroism while facing personal danger.

“His courage reflects really the very best of Oklahomans,” Stitt said.

Moore accepted the award while still struggling with the attention surrounding the worst day of his career.

“I don’t have words to express the appreciation,” Moore said. “I hate that such a tragic event happened. I appreciate all the attention, but I just — I’m ready to move on with life.”

The people of Pauls Valley were not ready to stop supporting him.

A former student created a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $20,000. Additional donations from community members and Oklahoma businesses pushed the total beyond $100,000.

Moore would not keep it.

“I’m not going to profit off of this tragic event,” he said.

Instead, he established the Principal Kirk Moore Fund.

The money will go to former Pauls Valley students who complete college or professional training and enter careers as teachers or first responders — the same kinds of people who ran toward the school when Moore needed them.

“If they go to school at Pauls Valley for the three years that we have them, and they want to become teachers or first responders, we’ll give them a graduation present when they finish their college degree,” Moore said.

Moore and Chronister both plan to return to Pauls Valley High School.

“This place is in our family here, all our kids,” Chronister said. “We don’t want to be defined by this.”

Moore does not claim to understand why the bullets missed the students, why he survived or why the gunman was stopped before anyone else was hurt.

He credits God.

“I’m glad it worked out the way it did,” Moore said. “Again, I think God’s hand was on all of us, but I can’t explain why it happened the way it did.”

That faith followed Moore into the PBR arena on Sunday. After the cowboys had gathered in prayer before stepping out to fight battles of their own, the cowboy community came together to honor him.

The award was presented by Horse Soldier Bourbon co-founder Will Summers, a retired Special Forces communications sergeant and infantry officer who served for 25 years.

A little more than a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Summers crossed into Afghanistan as a member of Operational Detachment Alpha 595. The 12-member Special Forces team, later known as the Horse Soldiers, worked alongside Afghan Northern Alliance fighters and helped capture Mazar-i-Sharif on horseback.

The mission was immortalized through the America’s Response Monument near Ground Zero, the book “Horse Soldiers” and the film “12 Strong.”

Summers had once been sent into a place where his commanders warned that the team might not return.

Now, he stood in the arena to recognize a principal who had run toward gunfire because two of his students were standing on the other side of it.

As Moore’s story was read, the crowd listened.

Then the in-arena announcer reached the words:

“The principal tackled him.”

The arena erupted louder than it had all day.

People jumped to their feet and began clapping. Fans who may not have been giving the presentation their full attention turned toward the arena floor. The sections seemed to rise all at once until everyone in the building was on their feet.

The applause grew into a thunderous ovation for a man who had been shot protecting children.

They remained on their feet.

Not for a winning ride.

Not for a championship score.

For the moment Kirk Moore heard gunfire, saw a pistol pointed at two students and ran.

He only knew his kids were in danger.

Kirk Moore was not wearing a cowboy hat when he charged through the office door.

But make no mistake.

He was a cowboy.

From all of us at PBR and Horse Soldier Bourbon, thank you, Principal Kirk Moore, for reminding us what it truly means to Be Cowboy.

Stay tuned after each PBR Teams event of the 2026 season as we continue to spotlight the local heroes and changemakers who inspire us.

Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media