Emily Romine’s roots are here. She spent her childhood in Martinsburg and regularly visited her grandparents who lived in Shepherdstown. They practiced medicine from their home in what is now the Thomas Shepherd Inn.
 “I never remember there being any congestion at the four-way stop,” Emily says. She can even recall crossing the intersection diagonally without worry. As a child she took dance classes at the Men’s Club, and remembers buying vanilla cokes at the Shepherdstown Pharmacy and ice cream at the German Street Market—now the Shepherdstown Sweet Shoppe.
Shepherdstown was a quieter place then, Emily remembers. But she welcomes the events and activities that make Shepherdstown such an interesting place.
Emily was born in 1972 in Guam. When she was two years old, her family returned here to settle in Martinsburg. After graduating from Martinsburg High School, she spent a year in Brazil in a Rotary exchange program. She attended Wittenberg University in Ohio, where she had a dual major in art history and French, and had the opportunity to spend eight months in Paris.
For all her travels, she was drawn back to Shepherdstown. “I decided to come back to this area because this town has such diversity and possibility.”
Emily now lives in Shepherdstown with her husband Brian Romine (also a local guy, from Charles Town) and their son, Alex. She and two business partners operate the Shepherdstown School of Dance. Much of her extended family also lives in the Eastern Panhandle.
To Emily, Shepherdstown is a thoughtful place that fosters a feeling of belonging in its residents, the way the town is welcoming to both new and longtime residents. “I think this town has done a good job of developing to fit the needs of the community without compromising its integrity.” The sense of community is one of the things Emily loves most about this town. “There are so many opportunities to hang out and exchange ideas and make connections with the people we live amongst, and connections to others are ultimately what define a community.”
For Emily, it is the place that fits her.