Volunteer Highlight

This month’s volunteer highlight is Karen Roemmich! Karen is a retired nurse who now splits her time between darting, identifying and protecting wild horses and playing Americana and Bluegrass music with various groups. She travels in her RV to music festivals and throughout the southwest states enjoying her music and fellow musicians. Karen first became involved with wild horses when she looked at property to buy in the Virginia City Highlands some 14 years ago. A wild pinto mare and her little pinto foal, crossed her path during the visit, and she felt inspired to move there. She then discovered the Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Association (VRWPA), joined and is still a member. This year, she trained through the AWHC program to become a darter and has more than 20 treatments under her belt.

She’s had horses of all kinds in her life, from riding bareback as a kid, teaching her daughter to ride and getting her to horse shows and then moving to Nevada and finding a very deep and spiritual connection to the horses in the Virginia Range. Sometimes when a wild one looks at her, she says, “it’s as though he’s looked right through me and knows all about me.” She’s currently writing a song called “The Stallion” which talks about that special connection!!

Her favorite part of being on the range is, “it’s like a ‘who’s who’ puzzle to figure out the bands and the horses in the band”. Her favorite part of documenting though, is taking a foal’s first photos and giving him or her a name. Thank you so much Karen for all your hard work!

Horse Highlight

These three bachelors make you say, "Uh oh, here comes trouble!" They go everywhere together, walking side by side, or in a single file line. They even take a good dusty roll together! Recently a Tracy saw and photographed them all roll together, going down one after another!