Sep. 18 -- The Claremore Area Chamber of Commerce unveiled its 2024 Leading Ladies during a livestream Tuesday.
The Claremore Area Chamber of Commerce has honored area women as Leading Ladies in several categories since 2015. This year, 10 categories were up for grabs.
-- Community Supporter: Amber Brassfield, Rogers County Volunteers for Youth
-- Nonprofit Leadership: Ellen Thomas, Rogers County Youth Services
-- Leader in Manufacturing: Angel Piotter, AXH Air Coolers
-- Leader in Education: Whitney Hocutt, head coach of Rogers State University women's golf
-- Leader in Health: Judy Riley, Claremore optometrist who retired in 2022
-- Leader in Government: Missy Richardson, Rogers County Planning Commission
-- Leader in Business: Gentry Stafford, Spectrum Paint
The chamber of commerce does not select the winners; instead, the chamber shares the nominations with another city's chamber, and that chamber picks the winners. That way, the selections are less likely to be colored by preexisting relationships.
Helt said she never even considered that anyone would nominate her as a Leading Lady because there are so many amazing women doing so much to help the community.
"I myself put a few folks in for nominations for things that they have done for the community and the things that they do for their organizations," Helt said. "I was totally expecting to see their names. I was not expecting to see mine."
Helt is a project manager for Verizon, and she was chapter lead of the Women's Organization of Verizon Employees for two years. She also does paperwork for her husband's heating and air company.
She volunteers with Claremore's Holland DeMolay young men's leadership group and the Claremore Rainbow Assembly, a chapter of the Oklahoma International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. She said she also chips in with menial tasks for the Will Rogers Masonic Lodge.
Helt also smoked up hundreds of pounds of pork butts for people to eat at Shipman Animal Hospital in the wake of the May tornado.
"None of it is anything I felt like needed an accolade," Helt said. "It's just ... it's your hometown, and that's what you do. You want to see your town do well. You want to see people thrive."
Thomas, who won the Nonprofit Leadership award, is the prevention services director for Rogers County Youth Services. She works with local schools so she can teach students life skills to help them become healthy adults.
"I have such a heart for the youth in the community just based on my own experience, things I went through as a teenager, things I saw as a teenager," Thomas. "I just want to be that person for those kids that I needed. That's really what drives my work."
She said it was a surprising honor to win the award. Thomas said she was in a meeting when Ashley May and Barby Myers of the chamber of commerce came in bearing flowers -- Thomas said she initially thought she'd missed an important meeting.
Neither Helt nor Thomas knew who nominated them for their respective awards.
"I just want to thank everybody that was involved in the process," Helt said. "I'd love it if they would reach out to [the other winners and me] and let us know who put us in so that I can give them a really big hug and say, 'Thank you.'"
The Leading Ladies Gala will take place Oct. 2 at 5:30 p.m. in the Dr. Carolyn Taylor Center ballroom at Rogers State University. Each winner will receive a crystal statuette and a bouquet.