ROTHSCHILD -- A compassionate but fiery AmeriCorps worker and longtime community activist on Thursday became the first leader in the Wausau area to receive the Athena award posthumously.

The Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce named the late Josie Paleologue-Pierce the 2009 Athena Award recipient at Stoney Creek Inn, honoring her long legacy working in the Wausau area before her death from cancer in August.

"Josie Paleologue-Pierce inspired and lifted up those around her," said Diane Postler-Slattery, the 2008 recipient and president and chief operating officer of Aspirus Wausau Hospital.

The award recognizes professional excellence and commitment to leadership opportunities for women. Postler-Slattery and others highlighted Paleologue-Pierce's compassion, professionalism and commitment to a range of community causes. Her widower, Frank Pierce, who accepted the award to thunderous applause, called Paleologue-Pierce, 75, a "vital force in our community for good."

Her service crossed a range of organizations and drew wide-ranging praise Thursday, but found its roots in a fierce hatred of injustice that was not always popular, her widower said.

Paleologue-Pierce served as program director for the local AmeriCorps program for 12 years. Prior to that she worked with the Women's Equal Opportunity Program and was an early figure in The Women's Community, a Wausau domestic abuse shelter.

Speaking after the ceremony, Pierce recalled his wife's long history of fighting injustice. Once, in the 1950s, she resigned from a college sorority that only would accept white, Christian members, he said, inviting intimidation and criticism from many people at the time.

"I think it must be in her genes," Pierce said.

That same passion, though, is what drove her work in Wausau, and Pierce and others Thursday looked forward to her influence surviving long after her death.