Raquel Ross initially looked to set up her first law practice in State College because she had family members who were looking to relocate to the college town.
The 2002 Penn State alumna soon found plenty of other reasons to love the place she had spent her undergraduate years.
“I stayed here because this area is just dynamic,” said Ross, this year’s Honorary Grand Marshal for Penn State’s Homecoming. “You have all of the joys of a small town or a small city with the beauty of nature and the availability to get out of the town atmosphere whenever you feel like it.”
Ross, a Schreyer Scholar who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies, founded Raquel Ross Law, L.L.C. in July 2012. She specializes in guardianship law, special education law and nonprofit work and represents children as a guardian ad litem.
She is also executive director of the Arthur C. Dale Foundation, a nonprofit organization created this past January to provide equine-assisted therapies and activities to military personnel and veterans as well as to individuals with and without special needs. Additionally, she is president of the Centre Region Down Syndrome Society and an ambassador for the National Down Syndrome Society.
Ross said she focused mostly on her studies during her time as a Penn State student but remembers how Homecoming weekends would make her think about the larger picture of her education.
“For me, it was a chance to branch out and become immersed not only with the alumni but also to celebrate Penn State and to recognize that it is about not only my future but about the past and to see the alumni come back and to realize what the future is,” she said.
Ross, who received her law degree from the University of Connecticut, now views Homecoming in a different light as an alumna living in the community.
“It’s a time to reach out to prospective alumni, to students,” she said, “and try to lend a hand and be there for them as mentors when you can.”
Ross is enjoying the traditions of Homecoming week, including Wednesday’s carnival, where she met 2016 Homecoming Grand Marshal Joel Myers, and has been impressed with the organizational skills and warmth of the Homecoming committee.
“They are an amazing group of individuals who have really taken this responsibility very seriously. It makes working with them not only easy but an honor,” she said. “They show you that they not only value your time but value you as a person.”
Ross, who is originally from Yardley, Pennsylvania, is glad she explored the community outside of the Penn State campus, a place she now calls home. Her husband, Stephen, and 3-year-old daughter, Isabel, have enjoyed it as well.
“A lot of people say that it’s a place where once you’re here, you can’t leave. And that’s not said in a bad way, but a good way,” she said. “It would be hard to find any place like it.”