photo by: Joselyn King

Becky Shilling-Rodocker, executive director of the Soup Kitchen of Greater Wheeling, right, is selected as the winner of the 2025 ATHENA Leadership Award at Wheeling Park’s White Palace on Thursday. She stands with past recipient Lori Jones, executive director of the YWCA Wheeling.

WHEELING — Becky Shilling-Rodocker always wanted to be an artist and art teacher, but Thursday she was honored for her work feeding the hungry.

Shilling-Rodocker, the executive director of the Soup Kitchen of Greater Wheeling, was honored with the ATHENA Leadership Award on Wednesday during a luncheon at Wheeling Park’s White Palace.

The event is jointly sponsored by the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce and YWCA Wheeling.

The ATHENA awards honors women identified as an “exemplary leader who has achieved excellence in their business or profession, served the community in a meaningful way and, most importantly, actively assisted women to achieve their full leadership potential.”

Other finalists for the award were JulieAnn Davis, President of the Ohio County Virtual Lions Club; Rosemary Humway-Warmuth, Wheeling city solicitor; and Jennifer Rohrig, business retention and expansion manager with the West Virginia Department of Economic Development.

Nominations were accepted from the community earlier this year, with an outside selection committee determining the winner. Members of the committee hailed from Parkersburg; Bridgeville, Pennsylvania; Pikesville, Maryland and Milford, Delaware.

Shilling-Rodocker said as she looked around the room, she was seeing a “who’s who if you need help” in the Wheeling area.

“And at every table there are women supported by all the men who do what we ask them to do,” she added.

“Honestly, when people come to Wheeling, West Virginia, and they need something, there’s usually somebody who is willing to help. … I love this community. And the reason for loving this community is that people are so helpful.”

Shilling-Rodocker grew up in a home where she saw her mother, Vivian Shilling, volunteer much of her time. She noted this inspired her at a young age to always want to help the community.

“She was always dragging me somewhere with her to volunteer,” Shilling-Rodocker continued. “She volunteered in Ohio County Schools as a tutor for probably 40 years.”

In addition, Vivian Shilling was a member of school parent-teacher associations, and on the boards of King’s Daughters Child Care and Crittenton Services in Wheeling.

Shilling-Rodocker said in college it may not have looked like she was on a path to running a soup kitchen, but that her choices did all add up and get her to where she is today.

She was an art major for the most part of her college career, and had plans to be an art teacher until her junior year.

“Then I felt like I really wasn’t in college because all I did was play with crayons and paint,” she explained. “I just felt like I really needed to study something and that was outside an art studio, so I changed majors.”

She turned toward criminal justice, and achieved a degree in sociology.

“It ties into this job,” she continued.

Shilling-Rodocker then attended West Virginia University and received a masters degree in community health development.

“Then I went into AmeriCorps, which was a big part of how I landed at the soup kitchen,” she said.

Last week, the federal government eliminated funding for the AmeriCorps program

“I hope it comes back,” she said. “At some point, it needs to come back. … People need to rethink this because it’s a horrible decision to get rid of AmeriCorps. It’s helped thousands, if not millions around the world.”

Last year’s ATHENA Leadership Award winner Crystal Bauer presented Shilling-Rodocker with the award, and they were joined on stage by first-year winner Lori Jones, executive director of YWCA Wheeling.

The first keynote speaker was recently retired broadcast journalist Brenda Danehart, who was interviewed on stage by Brooke Anderson, director of marketing for the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce.

Danehart then interviewed the second speaker, Rebekah Wolfe, who works as the teen dating advocate for Marshall County Schools. Her role is to advise students on how to make the best decisions in their relationships.

Wolfe told her own story. In 2022, she was in an abusive relationship where her partner attempted to strangle her and she nearly died.

She credited the YWCA Wheeling with giving her a safe place, and helping her learn “to stand up for myself.”

“I was the victim of domestic violence, and it almost killed me. But it also saved my life,” she said.”