Tracy Leigh Kerns Rutherford (1961 – 2025)

Tracy Leigh Kerns Rutherford, 63, of Front Royal, Virginia, passed away peacefully at rest on Sunday, June 1, 2025, after a long battle with COPD.

Tracy Leigh Kerns Rutherford

A Celebration of Life service will be held at the Front Royal Moose Lodge on June 21 at 4:00 p.m. Food will be provided.

Tracy was born September 23, 1961, in Front Royal, the second of three girls to the late Lyle Edward and Phyllis Fox Kerns.

Tracy was a passionate county employee for 30 years. She loved her job at the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. She loved helping people any chance she could and would give a stranger the shirt off her back.

Tracy was her son’s #1 fan for over a decade, watching every game she could.  You could hear her cheering a mile away from Bing Crosby Stadium anytime she was present.

She loved the ocean more than anything and the serenity it brought her. She loved her dogs as much as she could have loved another child, and anyone who knew her knew that.

She was small in stature but had a heart of a lion and a fiery soul. Her transparency shone bright with all who knew her, and for that, she will be missed.

She is survived by her husband, Chuck Rutherford; one son, Chaz Rutherford and partner Taylor Shamblin of Front Royal; and two sisters, Kimberly Wines Wooddell of Front Royal and Heather Kerns Medina and husband Joe of Capon Bridge, West Virginia.

“It is said before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains and the long winding road crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast that to enter there seems nothing more than to disappear forever. But there is no other way. The river can not go back. Nobody can go back. To go back is impossible in existence. The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean”. – Kahlil Gibran