The Girl Scouts were looking for a local leader and a former scout for young women to look up to.

They didn’t have to go far to find Kelly Roark of New Iberia.

After 15 years of hard work at the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce and years of volunteering, the Girl Scouts of Louisiana Pines to the Gulf (GSLPG) are honoring Kelly Roark alongside seven other women at their annual Women of Distinction event at the Petroleum Club in Lafayette July 25.

Roark was a Girl Scout herself once, working the cookie trade, but that’s not what the event is about. The people of Acadiana nominated nearly 100 women from across the region who they thought served their communities as women of distinction.

Often role models for girls in scouting made incredible achievements as astronauts or congresswoman, but these people can seem so far away and abstract. Marketing Director Cassandra Phillips said this women of distinction event is aimed to give girls a local role model.

“We really wanted to create an event where we could elevate local women who were making a really big impact in our community and give our girls these role models who are next door to them,” Phillips said.

Roark came to New Iberia 15 years ago when her retired Navy husband, Daniel Roark, found a job in the city with other retirees. Since she moved to the city, she focused much of her time on volunteering.

She spent time on the Kiwanis Board and with the Downtown Alliance Association, which Phillips identified as their reason for choosing her. Roarke said she likes to stay behind the scenes, so her nomination came as something of a surprise.

“I try to do a lot for my community and I guess I just saw that and they wanted to acknowledge me. I’m flabbergasted, gobsmacked,” Roark mused humorously.

This year, GSLPG added a second event in Shreveport. They are honoring eight women in Lafayette and seven women in Shreveport. The nomination process included an extensive form asking what the nominee does in the community and whether they were a girl scout or not. Not every nominee was a girl scout, as Phillips said, they wanted to elevate women regardless.

Following the nominations, the GSLPG formed a review panel made of board members, volunteers and staff. The panel researched each of the nominees before finalizing them in their class.

A major focus for the GSLPG in selecting their nominees was diversity in age, race and especially careers. Phillips said they wanted to show the range of what success can look like.

“We have women who specialize in STEM careers, we have women that are judges, we have politicians, we have a lot of business leaders and we try to emphasize the different parts of girl scouting. The ultimate goal of that is to teach our girls entrepreneurial skills,” Phillips said.

Their choice of nominees this year thoroughly reflects this belief.

The nominees in Lafayette are Anna-Laura Edmiston with Downtown Lafayette United Executive Director of the Pinhook Foundation Emily Hamner, Nekeisha Pierce with Life Changing Solutions LLC, executive director of LAGCOE Fumy Rita, Dr. Caroline Jurisich with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Maxine Woods with the Phoenix Family Life Center and Shyra Moran with Progressive Insurance.

The annual event started prior to the pandemic, but like everything else, it stopped during the global catastrophe. It didn’t see as many nominations when it returned last year. This year, the number of nominations skyrocketed.

The GSLPG is one of the 111 girl scout councils in the country and it covers all 42 Louisiana Parishes west of the Mississippi River. This Women of Distinction event isn’t unique, as councils all across the nation hold annual Women of Distinction events.

Jones Walker, the Stuller Family Foundation and First Horizon Bank all sponsored the event, and any business interested in sponsoring can reach out at GSLPG.com

Leading up to the event, the GSLPG is creating a bio for each woman detailing their accomplishments and contributions to the community. It will be available online at their different social media pages. To register for the event and to buy tickets, visit https://womenofdistinctionlaf.rsvpify.com or look for a link on their social media. Individual tickets are $40 and a table ticket is $300.