A pair of sisters had their Pirates baseball summer all planned out. Then it was taken away.

When Beth Cooper, a sixth-grade teacher at Center Avenue Elementary School, died unexpectedly April 8, her sister didn't want to go to games at PNC Park without her.

“We had been going to Pirate games together for about 20 years now, me and her,” Cathie Brennan said. “We had a 20-game season ticket plan this year and had mapped out which games we were going to this summer.

“I can't even think about going to those games without her. I don't want to do it.”

So she came up with something better.

Brennan cashed in most of the tickets, exchanging them for multiple seats to Thursday's Pirates-Chicago Cubs game, so Cooper's 27 students at Center Avenue could attend the game.

The travel party swelled to 48, including teachers, chaperones and other family members.

“A lot of those kids had never even been to Pittsburgh before, let alone a Pirate game,” Brennan said. “I wanted to do this for them, and for Beth.”

And the Pirates wanted to help.

Patty Paytas, a longtime Pirate employee and a Butler resident, has a sister, Donna Friel, who teaches at Meridian Elementary. Cooper used to teach there.

“We both knew Beth. We attend the same church (St. Fidelis) together,” Paytas said. “When we heard of this nice thing Cathie was doing, we wanted to pitch in.”

The Pirates donated T-shirts to all of the kids. A printer donated printing of the words “Coop's Kids” on the back of the shirts. The Pirates also gave every kid a $10 food voucher.

The Butler PTO contributed money toward food and the Junior National Honor Society in Butler paid for the bus transportation to the game.

“We were going to pay for the printing on the shirts, but the printer said Beth taught his kids in fourth grade and donated the services,” Brennan said.

“The support from the community on this has been truly incredible.”

A tour of the PNC Park press box was given to the students, who met broadcasters Greg Brown and former Pirate pitcher Steve Blass.

“The Pirates were fantastic through all of this,” said Colin Leyland, Center Avenue's other sixth-grade teacher.

Cooper, who was 51 years old, decorated her classroom with bobblehead dolls and other Pirates memorabilia. She used batting averages and other baseball numbers to help teach math.

“She had the kids play 'baseball games' during class, allowing them to advance to first base when they spelled a word correctly, second base for a more difficult word, a home run for an extremely hard one,” Brennan said.

“The relationship she had with those kids was strong ... special.”

Leyland agreed. “Beth knew how to reel kids in and keep them engaged in the classroom,” he said.

“She was an avid bowler and bowled in a weekend league at Sherwood Lanes. She brought her scores into class every Monday and had the kids total them up and compute her new bowling average. That's how she got the math work started.”

When her students were told of Cooper's death, they would not allow another teacher to sit in her chair. Instead, the chair was moved to a corner of the classroom, along with the bobbleheads.

That portion of the room became known as “Coop's Corner.”

“When a student did something special, he could sit in that chair. It meant something,” Brennan said.

Most of the Center Avenue students walk to school. Cooper always had her classroom open if a student wanted to come in 30 or 45 minutes early to catch up on studying.

“Beth was always there to help them, encourage them to succeed in any way,” Leyland said. “The physical education department would organize a sixth-grade volleyball tournament, Beth would help them practice every day, then be there to cheer them on.

“At a cross country meet in the fall, she'd be there at 6:30 a.m. helping the runners get ready, take their picture before the meet, get them fired up.

“Any event that took place, she was there for them. Beth was not an eight hour a day teacher. Not even close,” Leyland added.

The extra attention went primarily unnoticed by the students — until Cooper's death.

“Kids don't notice that stuff right away, then something drastic like that happens and they look at things differently,” Leyland said.

“Her loss hit these kids hard. Some of the boys felt like they didn't behave right at times and didn't have the chance to tell her they were sorry. The girls lost a great motherly figure.”

The students' appreciation for their teacher spilled over Thursday. They brought banners to the game and appeared on the stadium Jumbotron.

“The Pirates fill about 3,000 donation requests a season,” Paytas said. “It can be anything from tickets, the VIP program, promotional items, whatever.

“If the organization can provide it, we'll do it. I'm glad we did this one. This one hit home.”