VIP Profile: Tracey Young

Story by Amelia Bowen

Dr. Tracey Young built her career on a simple premise: no student reaches their potential alone. She knows this because she was once the student who needed someone else to see it first. Mr. David Crowe was Tracey’s principal at Warren Central High School. While she was still discovering who she might become, he saw abilities in her that she could not yet recognize. “He saw things in me and potential in me that I did not see in myself at that time,” Tracey says. “As soon as he let me know I had that ability, I started trying to really work on those skills.” Years passed. Tracey went to college, built a career, raised a family with her husband, Bob, and earned her doctorate. Mr. Crowe remained in her thoughts, though she never quite found the right moment to tell him how much his belief had mattered. Then she learned he was battling a terminal illness. By then, he was receiving inpatient care and no longer accepting visitors, so Tracey wrote him a letter. She told him about the difference he had made in her life and how much of what she had accomplished could be traced back to leaders like him who took the time to see something in a student. About a week later, a letter arrived in return. Mr. Crowe told Tracey how proud he was of her. He wrote that he had always known she would become a community leader, then charged her with doing for others what he had once done for her: mentor them, love them and help them recognize their potential. “By the way, I knew you earned your doctorate,” Tracey recalls him writing. “I came to your ceremony.” He had been there when she was hooded, quietly watching without approaching because he did not want to interrupt the celebration with her family. Tracey still has the letter. Decades later, she is still carrying out his challenge.

The Power of Words

Education was not Tracey’s original career plan. She began in healthcare with Med Center Health, eventually serving as administrator of the urgent care and Bluegrass Outpatient Center. There, an opportunity to write a grant changed the trajectory of her life. At the time, local military veterans often had to travel to Nashville for basic primary healthcare. Tracey collaborated on a grant that allowed veterans to receive primary care locally through urgent care facilities in Bowling Green. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, writing has such power,’” she says. Her mother, an English language arts teacher who spent 27 years at Warren Elementary, had taught her that if she could speak and write well, she could succeed in nearly any profession. But that first grant showed Tracey something deeper. “I realized the power behind writing and how it could move the needle forward for vulnerable populations,” she says. Tracey earned her doctorate and began teaching at Western Kentucky University, where she helped secure a grant for the Institute for Rural Health. It funded mobile health units that brought care into high-need communities while offering WKU nursing and dental hygiene students real-world experience. She loved teaching and her students. But one day, watching commuters arrive on campus, Tracey began reflecting on who had access to opportunity and who did not. “I just really felt drawn to go help those who don’t start off on the 50-yard line,” she says. She launched an independent grant-writing business focused on children and vulnerable populations. Warren County Public Schools soon became one of her most frequent partners. Eventually, Tracey approached district leadership. “Let me change lives through my writing,” she remembers saying. “I promise I will succeed because I’ll be driven by the passion to help them.” They said yes. She has been writing for the district ever since.

Opportunity by Design

Today, Tracey serves as Director of Grants and Community Outreach for Warren County Public Schools, connecting schools with businesses, nonprofits and community leaders to create opportunities students might not otherwise encounter. “We are locking arms and working together to find every opportunity to cast a wider net and provide more students with transformational learning opportunities.” Through partnerships with organizations like United Way of Southern Kentucky and the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, students gain access to career shadowing, campus visits and trade school tours, while grants help eliminate barriers like transportation. “A lot of times, if a family doesn’t own a car, how are they supposed to get to a college campus?” Tracey asks. “We take for granted that kids have that capacity. Last year alone, WCPS students participated in approximately 10,000 college and career exploration experiences. Over six years, the district has increased the percentage of students graduating college or career ready by 31 percent, with more than 95 percent now graduating prepared for postsecondary education or workforce entry. “That is transformational,” Tracey says. “Our community prospers when our kids prosper.” Tracey also advocated for a district education foundation giving local businesses a direct avenue to invest in students. What began as an idea has raised more than half a million dollars for local education. To Tracey, those figures represent lives altered. “Even your most vulnerable kid who nobody would think would have a shot at success has a shot at success,” she says. “You raise expectations, and those kids meet them and exceed them every time. You just have to pour into them.”

Starting Early

Some of Tracey’s strongest advocacy centers on early childhood education and the reality that access in the first five years of life shapes long-term outcomes. Through district and community partnerships, that work includes preschool programming, a kindergarten-readiness summer academy, a mobile “Little Learners” classroom traveling into high need neighborhoods and training for local childcare providers. “How can we partner to train parents and guardians how to be their kids’ best teacher in the home before they ever get to kindergarten?” Tracey asks. WCPS allocates approximately $2 million annually from its general fund to support full-time preschool, serving more than 800 children who qualify through economic disadvantage or diagnosed disabilities. Over the last four years, the district has seen a 14 percent increase in children entering kindergarten designated as school-ready. “It takes our business community. It takes our community leaders. All of us,” she says. “It can’t just be legislators funding preschool education. Until we have that fully funded, it is going to take all of us.”

A Culture of Caring

Tracey’s commitment to children extends beyond the school day. Her board service has included the Family Enrichment Center, The Foundry Christian Community Center, WKU’s Campus Child Care and the SKYCTC Foundation. More than 30 years ago, a 3 a.m. idea led her to establish the Family Enrichment Center’s Run & Walk for Children, now a longstanding community event supporting local families. She has also spent a decade on the board of the Barren River Area Child Advocacy Center, which serves children who have experienced trauma and sexual abuse. Last year, the center served nearly 1,000 children across the region through mental health therapy, advocacy and trauma-informed exams alongside law enforcement and medical partners. “If it weren’t for the center and the staff who are heroes working with those kids every day, if it weren’t for board members and volunteers, all those people collectively give those children hope,” she says. “If not us, then who?” That responsibility was modeled early. After teaching at Warren Elementary, Tracey’s mother worked nights at the local spouse abuse shelter, raising three daughters while giving back to families in need. Now 84, she still works at WKU in the athletic ticket office, greeting visitors and brightening days. “She exudes joy,” Tracey says. Tracey and her husband raised four daughters: their oldest became a special education teacher, their second works for Children’s Advocacy Centers of Kentucky, their third works for Med Center Health and their youngest attends WKU. “Do not spend your life focusing on yourself,” Tracey tells them. “Focus on those around you, and you will be blessed.”

The Ripple Effect

That philosophy shapes the way Tracey mentors young professionals and students. When a student recently approached her wanting to learn about grant writing, Tracey pulled a chair around her desk despite running late for another commitment. “I was 45 minutes late for another meeting,” she says. “I thought, I’m going to sit and face that student and say, ‘All right, let’s talk about it.’” When the student shared a dream of moving to Washington, D.C., Tracey offered to connect her with a grant-writing firm there once she demonstrated the work. It is Mr. Crowe’s challenge continuing decades later. It is her mother’s legacy continuing through her. “I’m a real believer in trying to mentor others and helping guide them to see that when you live outside of your own needs, you bless others,” Tracey says. “And then they bless others. And then they bless others. And then you transform an entire community.” For Tracey, leadership has never been about standing at the center of the story. It is about recognizing who has been left outside of it, making room and calling others to join. “Loving others is easy,” she says. “We just get caught up in the social media, the negativity and the barriers. Just plow through them, because really, if you just love others first, everything else comes so much easier.” That is the legacy Dr. Tracey Young builds every day: not simply grants written or programs funded, but a community of leaders learning to look beyond themselves. One person sees potential in another. That person reaches back. Then another does the same. Until eventually, the entire community moves forward together.