Ep 70 - Tara's Story, What We Carry and What We Build From It, with Shawn Gladden

In The Spotlight: Raising Leaders in the Performing Arts · Aug 4, 2026 · 1h 3m

This is the episode Robin has been building toward for years.

For a long time, the name Tara Gladden has appeared quietly at EMC Performing Arts Studio, on scholarship awards, in essays, in the hearts of students who've wondered about the girl behind the honor. Today, we finally tell her story.

Robin is joined by her cousin Shawn Gladden, Tara's brother, for a conversation that is raw, honest, and long overdue.

Tara Allison Gladden was a shy, gentle fifteen-year-old from Columbia, Maryland: a soccer player, an animal lover, a girl just beginning to find herself through dance. In the summer of…