Five Lehigh Valley Women of Distinction, Including Lehigh University President, Alice...

Five Lehigh Valley Women of Distinction, Including Lehigh University
President, Alice Gast, a Former Girl Scout, to be Acclaimed at Girl Scouts
Signature Take The Lead Honoree Event; Three Hundred Corporate and Community
Leaders Expected

Girl Scouts Emcee the Program and Introduce the Honorees

BETHLEHEM, Pa., April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Five Lehigh Valley Women
will be honored by The Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania for their
extraordinary leadership April 30, 2009 at the 11th Annual Take the Lead
Honoring Women of Distinction awards ceremony. The event will take place at 6
p.m. at the Holiday Inn Conference Center, 7736 Adrienne Drive, Fogelsville,
PA. Seven area Girl Scouts, who were chosen by a panel of judges, will "run"
the event, serving as emcees and introducing award winners.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080312/DC16476LOGO-a)

The five honorees are Meloney Sallie-Dosunmu, Manager of Organization
Effectiveness and Talent Management, Just Born; Dr. Debbie Salas-Lopez, chair,
Department of Medicine, Lehigh Valley Health Network; Dr. Alice Gast,
President, Lehigh University; Nancy Conrad, Esq., Partner, White and Williams
LLP and Wendy Body, Project Manager, Alvin H. Butz, Inc.

"These five honorees cover the spectrum: two corporate leaders, a
college President, a lawyer, and a doctor," said Ann Meredith, CEO, Girl
Scouts of Eastern PA. "They are vanguards in their field where they have
achieved at the highest levels and broken the glass ceiling, even when it
wasn't easy. These women of accomplishment are the kinds of women our girls
can learn from and emulate," Meredith added.

Honorary co-chairs of the event are State Representatives Karen Beyer, Julie
Harhart and Jennifer L. Mann. Co-chairs are Tracy Onorofsky, Capital Blue
Cross and Steve Patterson, TD Bank.

Top sponsors of the event include TD Bank, White and Williams, Air Products,
Capital Blue Cross, Crayola and PPL.

The Girl Scouts emcees are Bernadette Schwarz, a sophomore at Parkland High
School, outside of Allentown and Gabrielle Augustine, a freshman at Cedar
Crest College.

Sallie-Dosunmu, in addition to her extensive community work, is a winner of
the Leadership Excellence Award at Just Born, the manufacturer of marshmallow
peeps and other candy and a perennial top show in the "Best Places to Work in
Pennsylvania" Awards. Sallie-Dosunmu is also a member of the company's "40
Hour Club" which honors employees who have done 40 hours of community and
charitable service each year. Sallie-Dosunmu also received the President's
Volunteer Service Award in 2005 and in 2006.

Dr. Debbie Salas-Lopez, chair, Department of Medicine at the Lehigh
County Medical Center, has received numerous fellowships and awards. She has
been active in Latino causes, working to ensure that Latinos have access to
medical care and translators in hospitals and in other medical settings. She
is a widely acclaimed speaker on medical accessibility. Salas-Lopez was the
winner of the Humanism in Medicine Award at University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey, her medical alma mater, where she also won the Best
Teacher Award in 2006.

Alice P. Gast, PhD, is the 13th President of Lehigh University, the first
woman - and the first former Girl Scout - to hold that post. Prior to coming
to Lehigh, Dr. Gast was the Vice President of Research and Associate Provost
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and for 16 years was a professor
of chemical engineering at Stanford University. She holds a bachelor's degree
in chemical engineering from the University of Southern California and
received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. She is the co-author of
"Physical Chemistry of Surfaces," considered the classic textbook in her
field. Dr. Gast has won numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and
the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiative in Research.

Nancy Conrad is chair of the Labor and Employment Practice Group and a partner
in the Allentown office of the White and Williams LLP law firm. Six years ago,
Nancy's life changed radically when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Now a breast-cancer survivor, Conrad is an advocate for women's and girls'
issues and active in many parts of the legal community. She is coordinator of
the Pennsylvania Bar Association's community-service activities, among them
which was to have a team of women attorneys running in the Susan G. Komen Race
for the Cure.

Conrad did not take the traditional road to becoming an attorney.
She was a third-grade teacher for several years when she started attending
evening classes at the Temple University School of Law. She received her law
degree, cum laude, in 1989 and won the American College of Trial Lawyers Medal
for Excellence in Advocacy.

Wendy G. Body, a former Girl Scout, has been a project manager for 25 years
with Alvin H. Butz, Inc., the oldest and largest construction company of its
kind in the Lehigh Valley. During that time, Body has supervised nearly
one-half billion dollars worth of construction. She has also contributed
widely to the community. She is the past president of the Allentown Rotary
Club, a team captain of the National MS Society, and a co-chair of the Camp
Neidig Leadership Camp. She is also a committee member of Desales
University's Golf Tournament. Body was one of the founding members in 1993 of
the Women's 5K Classic, now the largest women's race in Pennsylvania, with
more than 5,000 entrants a year.

This is the 11th year that Women of Distinction in Lehigh Valley have been
honored by the Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania is the largest girl-serving organization
in Pennsylvania. It serves 45,000 girls and 14,000 volunteers in Berks,
Bucks, Carbon, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton and
Philadelphia counties. Today 80 per cent of all women in leadership and
executive roles in this country were Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts alumnae
comprise 70 per cent of women in the U.S. Congress. For further information
about Girl Scouting, to sign up, volunteer or donate, contact www.gsep.org or
call 215 564 2030.

Contact: Noreen Shanfelter
Senior Director of Communications
Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania
Tel. 215-564-2030, Ext. 1048
E-mail: nshanfelter@gsep.org

SOURCE Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania

Noreen Shanfelter, Senior Director of Communications, Girl Scouts of Eastern
Pennsylvania, +1-215-564-2030, Ext. 1048, nshanfelter@gsep.org