It’s the biggest year yet for the YWCA’s Women of Excellence Awards.

The YWCA said a record number of women have been nominated to this year’s awards.

“There’s a lot of new nominees this year and a lot of women who have never even been to the event before,” said Melissa Ferguson, YWCA Public Relations Manager. “I think it just speaks really highly of St. Joseph that we have so many outstanding women that we can have so many nominees.”

56 women have been nominated as well as 3 businesses.  However, only one woman or business in each category will be chosen as the recipient at the Awards Luncheon.

The public submitted nominations in several categories. Women in the Workplace, Women in Volunteerism, Women in Support Services, Emerging Leader (women under 40) and Employer of Excellence.

The event originally began as an awareness event in 2001 with around 200 attendees.  Since then it has grown to host around 1,000 guests.

Over 500 women in the community have been nominated since the event began 14-years-ago with this year breaking records with the largest number of over-all nominations.

The YWCA said a panel of community members judge the nominations with the nominees’ names removed to select the winner from each category.

All nominees will be invited to attend a reception and have their profile in the program book at the Women of Excellence event which will be held June 18 at the Civic Arena from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The YWCA said between the record number of nominees and keynote speaker, Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester a large crowd is anticipated at this year’s event.

2015 YWCA Women of Excellence Nominees: