08/18/2025
The 2025 Women of Distinction event was held on Saturday, August 16 and honored Sonia Pagan with the Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award, and Dr. Laurie Boeding, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Trident Technical College, Quinetta Buterbaugh, District Manager of Government and Community Relations for Duke Energy, Madonna Farray, Community Management Lead for Humana, Jenny Hardee, CEO of Mcleod Dillion, Lynn Harrelson, Human Resources and Corporate Functions Vice President for Sonoco, Patricia Parr, Retired Assistant Solicitor for District Attorney, and Lighthouse Behavioral Health Hospital’s own CEO, Julie Parker, were awarded with the 2025 Mary Dean Brewer Women of Distinction award.
The annual Women of Distinction event is a recognition and fundraising dinner of the Girl Scouts of Eastern South Carolina that celebrates and honors outstanding women for their professional accomplishments, service to others and impact on their community. Each year, the Girl Scouts call upon the public to help identify women who exemplify excellence both through their professional achievements, as well as their community volunteerism. Honorees are chosen based on four criteria: professional/community leadership, professional/community service, strong role model for girls and community visibility.
Julie Parker’s nomination read, “Julie Parker has been the CEO of Lighthouse Behavioral Health Hospital for almost three years. Within that time, she has made extensive positive changes not only patients at Lighthouse, but for the community that it serves. She has conducted significant research into what was needed in our area from referral systems across South Carolina and North Carolina. With that feedback and collaboration with other mental health caregivers, professionals and facilities, she is expanding the programs at Lighthouse to further care for the children in need throughout our area. Her devotion to all suffering from mental health or substance use is evident not only in her work but in her volunteer community work as well. Mrs. Parker gives back heavily in youth programs spanning from youth sports organizations, YMCA programming surrounding teaching youth about the importance of empathy to assist with anti-bullying tactics in our local school systems. She is a pillar in Horry County, and leads the good fight for accepting special needs, and differences in all that should be celebrated and not secluded.
Julie has followed her passion to make evident changes in care for those in need. She began her career as an in-home behavioral therapist, responsible for programming and ex*****on of daily patient therapy programming for children and adolescents on the autism spectrum. She saw the need to do more for those children on the spectrum, and personally, cared for her oldest child that was also on the spectrum. She continued her education and added two master’s degrees and worked her way up through the hospital system, absorbing as much knowledge as possible about patient care.
Julie works closely with law enforcement, the crisis teams across the state, local hospitals, therapists, school counselors and DMH, to make sure that our community is offered compassionate trauma-informed care. This she instills in all her employees and mentors her leadership team to the best humans they could possibly be and builds each of them up for them in return pour into the entire staff. There is no hierarchy when it comes to Mrs. Parker. On a normal day, you can find Julie sitting on the floor with a patient empathetically trying to help them work through their triggers, supporting staff during codes, speaking with families of IVC'd patients and helping them navigate this traumatic event in their own lives. She truly loves the work that she does- and she will truly continue to make a large impact in this area.
Mrs. Parker is a CEO, wife, mother of four (including one that is special needs), youth soccer coach and a servant leader. She IS a beacon of light at our hospital and a great leader that little girls everywhere can look up to.”
