Article by Monica Nassif Haddad
We are so excited to celebrate our Valentine’s More Than a Lawyer, Tracey Rohrbaugh, for her amazing work with Horses with Hearts. Tracey, who focuses her practice primarily on construction litigation, manages the Martinsburg office of Kay Casto & Chaney. She has passionately served Horses with Hearts for the past 16 years, because of its amazing impact on the community, particularly those with disabilities, mental illness, and addiction.
Tracey and her husband Jack have been happily married for 33 years, and they have two adult daughters. Their older daughter, Andrea, is autistic and completely non-verbal. When Andrea was invited to participate with Horses with Hearts in 2005, just one year after the program was created, Tracey was not optimistic of the benefits with the therapeutic riding program given her daughter’s fear of both heights and large animals. Unrelenting, on the fifth trip to the farm, Andrea was finally able to mount a horse. Within moments, Tracey witnessed a change beginning in her daughter. Her shy little girl with no self-confidence was on her way to growing her social skills and her self-confidence, along with improving her motor skills and posture. Her daughter had found something that she truly loved. In fact, 18 years later, Andrea still looks forward to her weekly lessons, and her self-confidence has grown so much that she now lives semi-independently.
As her daughter became more involved with Horses with Hearts, Tracey began to realize the tremendous impact that the program was having on Andrea and the other students who were participating. She wanted to be part of growing this new program, so, in 2008, she joined the Board of Directors. Since that time, Tracey has been an important part of the team that has helped Horses with Hearts to grow from a fledgling program with just one horse and one rider on a leased property, to one that now has 18 equines (11 horses, 3 minis, and 4 ponies), 39 riders, and its own 33-acre farm. Tracey is thrilled that the program has also grown into a multi-faceted program with not only therapeutic riding, but also equine assisted learning, horse powered reading, equine mental health and addiction recovery, equine assisted leadership development, and a mini hearts program which takes miniature horses to those who can’t get to the farm. Recently, Horses with Hearts initiated a capital campaign to raise funds to build an indoor arena, so that the program, which currently operates only six months per year because of weather, can operate all year round.
Tracey has a history of volunteerism within the legal community as well. In 2008, as President of the Berkeley County Bar Association, she was one of the founding members of the Christmas Campaign for Kids (a program which solicits funds from local bar members and then uses those funds to shop for Christmas gifts for children in the CASA program). In 2014, Tracey helped to create the Eastern Panhandle Bar Association Charitable Foundation, Inc., which took over the Christmas Campaign and launched a new scholarship program for local high school students. When Tracey’s term as President ended in 2022, the Christmas Campaign had nearly tripled in size and, last year, the Eastern Panhandle Bar Foundation provided gifts for more than 100 local children. Tracey also served on the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce for 6 years, ultimately serving as its Chair.
When she is not working, spending time with her family, or volunteering, Tracey plays mandolin and sings in a bluegrass band, something she has been doing since the age of 10. Though she has had the opportunity to play music and share the stage with some great singers and musicians, one of her proudest moments as a musician was playing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Tracey was nominated by West Virginia State Bar President-Elect Shannon Smith.
