ByBy age 17, Teagan Russ’s pursuit of her lifelong ambition to ride horses had left her exhausted and demoralized. With her graduation from Waynesboro Area Senior High School on the horizon, she had just devoted a year of her life fighting tooth and nail to participate in a veterinary assistant vocational technical program, which would have offered her the opportunity to work with the animals she loved.
“People would straight up tell me, ‘No, you can’t ride here. It makes me nervous that you’re visually impaired,’” recalls Russ. “And when I was a kid, the impairment wasn’t even that bad, but people still just didn’t want to deal with it.”
She’d begun to wonder if she would ever be welcomed in an equestrian community—until, that is, she first arrived in the stables of the Franklin County 4-H Therapeutic Riding Center to begin an internship.
“What I found here amazed me. The director, the instructors, the barn manager—all of them treated us like people and with such patience and kindness. And when I came here in high school, I was actually in a wheelchair due to nerve damage. I couldn’t even walk. The director looked at me and then told me to go get a horse. And that’s just how they are: kind and inclusive.”
“What I found here amazed me,” says Russ. “The director, the instructors, the barn manager—all of them treated us like people and with such patience and kindness. And when I came here in high school, I was actually in a wheelchair due to nerve damage. I couldn’t even walk. The director looked at me and then told me to go get a horse. And that’s just how they are: kind and inclusive.”
Since 1982, when it was founded by Penn State Extension educator Robert Kessler, the Franklin County 4-H Therapeutic Riding Center has been providing recreational and therapeutic horsemanship activities to individuals of all ages and with varying physical, mental, and emotional abilities. With a footprint of twenty-five acres, the center comprises three riding arenas and a ten-stall horse barn. Its operations are overseen by five paid therapeutic riding and driving instructors—all certified through the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International and the Council for Education and Certification in Therapeutic Horsemanship—as well as a small army of forty to eighty volunteers.
“You’ll see someone arrive here anxious or sullen, and an hour later, whether they’re 3 years old or 80 years old, you’ll see a grin beaming from their face,” says Susan Rotz, the center’s director. “That says more than I ever could about the power of what we do.”
Even for the frugal operation, however, maintaining its facilities has proven a struggle. In the aftermath of COVID, as budgets tightened and the philanthropic pipeline slowed to a trickle, the center was facing agonizing decisions about where to throttle programming and services. That’s when an unexpected bequest hit like a lightning bolt from out of the blue.
Rotz recalls she had just had her second cup of coffee when the phone rang. “The person on the other end of the line said, ‘Are you sitting down? Because this is going to be the best news you’ve heard in forty-two years.’ That’s when they told me: Angela left us a $1 million gift. I was floored, flabbergasted. We were in tough financial straits, and it arrived at just the right time. Frankly, I burst into tears.”
The “Angela” that Rotz immediately knew by first name alone was Angela Weagly, a 1965 graduate of Penn State with a degree in marketing who had recently passed away in October 2022. Weagly, a resident of the Waynesboro area, started volunteering at the center in the early 1990s and sponsored one of the center’s horses for many years.
More importantly, she would show up in the dead of winter to muck the stalls and groom the horses, carrying out the behind-the-scenes, unglamorous labor that kept the whole operation afloat. As close as Rotz came to Weagly, she never got an inkling that an estate gift could be on the horizon.
“I guess you could say I was shocked but not surprised: shocked because I had no idea it was even a possibility, but not surprised because it was Angela’s way to quietly make the center a better place, never seeking to take credit or grab the spotlight,” says Rotz. “I miss her dearly, but it warms my heart to think about the incredible legacy of support she’s left behind.”
Carol Hoover, another longtime volunteer, recalls how Weagly became a role model to her as she was first learning the ropes at the center.
“Angela had such a gentle way of interacting with students, so I came to really respect and emulate the way she put people at ease so they could be their full selves,” says Hoover. “She saw the transformative effects of equine therapy day after day, year after year, and I think those experiences were imprinted on her heart. But then to surprise us all with a gift to ensure this place survives and thrives—it’s a beautiful thing.”
A large portion of her gift, which ultimately came to just over $1.3 million, will become part of the center’s endowment, boosting the operating budget and allowing improvements to move forward such as installing cooling fans in the barns, servicing the rings, and funding the purchase of new horses.
For her part, Teagan Russ has transitioned from a student into a highly skilled and indispensable center volunteer, and even though she never met Weagly in person, she is keenly aware of how her predecessor’s generosity is touching the lives of the people the center serves, including through new programs geared to military veterans and the elderly.
“We see former soldiers with PTSD, dysregulated and hyperactive kids, people from nursing homes who’ve lost their mobility—it really is the full spectrum of the community that we welcome into the barn to interact with our horses. I know firsthand what a rare and special place this is, so I feel really amazed and grateful that there are people stepping forward with support.”