Thomas Powell was a hard- working barber with a goofy sense of humor. He was a family man, a "very hands-on dad" who loved his 7-year-old son and 16- year-old daughter, his wife says.

Powell was waiting to pick up his son after a birthday party when he was shot and killed Saturday night.

"I'm trying to be strong for my kids because they are having a really hard time, but I'm still in disbelief," said Tami Wells-Powell, 36.

She can't imagine why anyone would want her husband dead.

"He just didn't have enemies. . . . If anybody knows anything, I would like them to come forward, because somebody took away a father, a husband and a friend. . . . Honor Thomas by coming forward. He deserves it."

Powell, 30, was waiting for his son to be dropped off at a shopping center on Sable Boulevard and Mississippi Avenue. Seven- year-old Terrance had been at a birthday party and a basketball coach gave him a ride to meet his dad.

Before they arrived, Powell was shot about 8 p.m. He staggered into a Country Buffet. He died at a hospital that evening.

Family and friends remember Powell for his stream of jokes.

"He would crack everybody up doing this old man dance. Whenever anyone was down, he would do it," Wells-Powell said. "It's impossible to demonstrate."

Traci Wells-Kemp, 33, remembered how her brother-in-law loved teasing aunts and nieces in the family.

"It would be a bunch of women and he'd say, 'How you brothers doin'?' " she said.

Powell used to tease his sister- in-law by pretending to hit on her or by telling her that her eyebrows looked like mustaches.

He had gained notoriety for his work with eyebrows, the sisters said, and was in demand for haircuts at his barbershop on East Iliff Avenue and South Buckley Road in Aurora .

"His clientele was huge," his wife said. "He worked literally seven days a week."

Powell began cutting hair straight out of high school and helped open The Crop Shop over a year ago.

Wells-Powell met her future husband in 1995 at Butterfield 8, a Cherry Creek club that is no longer in business.

"His personality, I was instantly attracted to him. He had this aura about him," she said. "We started talking and the rest is history. . . . He told me that as soon as he saw me at the club he knew I would be his wife."

The family moved to the Green Valley Ranch community in Denver last year.

She remembers her husband as a man who drove his son to school every day, who made appearances at all the class Halloween parties and school conferences, and who loved to watch daughter Victoria play volleyball.

"He just wanted the kids to have everything he didn't have growing up," said Wells-Powell.

Powell was raised in Colorado and graduated from Aurora Central High School. Police are looking for a white compact vehicle seen speeding from the shooting scene. Powell had been driving a silver 1999 GMC Yukon with Tennessee license plates.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact detective Craig Appel at 303-739-6207.

craigk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5618

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