Pennsylvania First Lady Judge Marjorie Rendell Joining Girl Scouts of Eastern PA to Celebrate Women Leaders

More than a dozen past and present Take the Lead awardees to gather at inaugural breakfast event

MIQUON, Pa., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania First Lady Judge Marjorie Rendell will be the Keynote Speaker at the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania's (GSEP) inaugural Honoree Celebration Breakfast, beginning at 8:30 am on Tuesday, February 23 at the Comcast Center.  The event will be an historic, regional gathering of the 2010 Take The Lead honorees, as well as members of the award's 'Hall of Fame' who were recognized in 2008 and 2009.

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"We're pleased to have Judge Rendell join us for this occasion," said Ann Thornton Field, Chair of the Board of Directors for GSEP.  "With her impressive legal and judicial career and such strong regional ties to our Council, she exemplifies the leadership potential for girls and women."

Take The Lead recognize some of the region's most notable women of courage, confidence and character whose leadership and achievements make the world a better place.  Recipients represent the Council's three Service Center regions in Berks County, the Lehigh Valley and Greater Philadelphia and will be recognized at separate events in March and April.  All 2010 honorees will attend the February 23 Celebration Breakfast:

Berks County: The Honorable Elizabeth Ehrlich, Senior Judge (Retired), Court of Common Pleas of Berks County; Virginia Hand, Director, Holleran Center for Community Engagement at Alvernia University; Joni Naugle, Principal at Focused, LLC; Elaine Stanko, Esq., Partner at Fox Rothschild LLP; and Raquel Otero de Yiengst, Ed.D., Vice Chair, Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

Lehigh Valley: Kim Capers, CHIP Outreach Coordinator for Capital Blue Cross; Terry Capuano, Senior Vice President of Clinical Services and incoming Chief Operating Officer for Lehigh Valley Health Network; Debra Frazer-Howze, Vice President of Government and External Affairs for OraSure Technologies, Inc.; Philanthropist Priscilla Payne Hurd, Priscilla Payne Hurd Foundation; and Dr. Joan Schork, Ph.D., Principal Engineering Associate for the Chief Engineer's Office at Air Products, Inc.

Philadelphia: Councilwoman-At-Large Blondell Reynolds Brown, City of Philadelphia;  Sharmain Matlock-Turner, President and CEO of Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition; and The Honorable Annette Rizzo, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

GSEP also named Judy Spires, president of ACME Markets, Inc. as the recipient of its 2010 Juliette Gordon Low Leadership Award, which the Council introduced three years ago to honor women of extraordinary vision and impact.

Past recipients of GSEP's Take The Lead Award include The Honorable Lynn Abraham, Sally Gammon, Anne d'Harnoncourt, Sally Miksiewicz, Kim Murphy, Lisa Nutter, Sister Mary Scullion, Diane Wittry.  All are role models who support the Girl Scouts mission to developing girls as leaders of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.

Judge Rendell was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1994 and, in 1997, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where she continues to serve as an appellate judge.  She founded Avenue of the Arts, Inc. in 1993 to develop Philadelphia's Broad Street District as a world-class artistic venue, and was a partner in the Philadelphia firm of Duane, Morris & Heckscher for 20 years, specializing in bankruptcy and commercial litigation.  Judge Rendell earned a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Villanova University Law School. She is a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.

With the mission of building girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place, Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania (GSEP) is the largest girl-serving organization in Pennsylvania and among the largest Girl Scout councils in the United States.  GSEP serves more than 41,000 girl members and 14,000 adult volunteers in Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia Counties.  An estimated 80 percent of U.S. women in leadership and executive roles and 70 percent of U.S. Congresswomen are Girl Scout alumnae.

SOURCE Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania