After promoting the Valley's most famous flower gardens, Cindy Verge is looking forward to tending her own backyard.

Executive director of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival for 20 years, Verge will retire this fall.

Verge was a journalist and editor when she joined the Festival as its Sponsorship Coordinator in 1999. When she became executive director in 2003, "I learned how to run a business," Verge told the Weekly News, "because it was payroll, accounts receivable, accounts payable, a budget and making our move from the Old Town Grainery building to our current spot happen."

She built the Festival's first website and sourced and sold unique tulip-themed merchandise in the Festival office and online "in the days before you could sign up with Shopify and pay a monthly fee to have them figure it out," she said. Today online sales of merchandise generate about 14% of the festival's gross income.

It was Verge who brought the official Tulip Festival Parade to La Conner. After one too many rained-out parades at the Lefeber Bulb Company or Edgewater Park, Verge vowed to get the Festival parade out of the mud and onto pavement.

In those days, the La Conner Kiwanis' Not-So-Impromptu Tulip parade celebrated the topping of the tulips and the departure of the tourists. Turning the parade into an early April celebration of the tulips was a big ask, but Verge convinced the Kiwanis that the revamped parade would be good for the town.

Channel Drive resident Jeannette DeGoede is not surprised. The former Tulip Town owner says that the quiet, diplomatic Verge often brought together people with different ideas and agendas. In fact, she's not quite sure how the next director will be able to fill Verge's shoes.

At World Tulip Summits in Australia, England and Turkey, DeGoede saw Verge's talent for diplomacy in action. "You could just see her winning hearts. Everybody responded so well to her," said DeGoede.

Verge also hosted the 2019 World Tulip Summit here in Skagit County. "It was pretty cool to meet delegates from all over the world, from China, South America, England, Turkey, Australia and find out how they operate," Verge said. Much was familiar. "In agriculture, best practices are still best practices wherever you are."

Every year's Festival was "a giant puzzle," she said and she loved putting it together. "Half of my job is getting visitors here, getting them information and getting them to the venues they want to see," she said. "The other half is encouraging community groups to host events like the Kiwanis Salmon Barbeque, the street fair and art shows." In addition, there are Festival-sponsored events like the parade, annual gala, Tulip Ambassador contest and the poster unveiling.

"I learned how to be flexible," she said. "One of the cool things about my job is that while some things stayed the same – there will be tulips and people will come – within those parameters every day it changed. You make plans and you do the best you can. You have to know that those plans are going to change along the way"

She laughed when someone once asked her what she did if something went wrong: "It's not if, it's when."

She also loved getting to know people like Jeannette DeGoede. "Some of them transcend those business relationships and become your friends," she said. "It's been a delight."

And Verge's next chapter? She plans to take it slowly and not commit to anything during her first year of retirement besides spending time with her family.

With no Festival responsibilities next spring, she and her husband Tom may attend a Mariner's spring training week. And she can garden.

"I look forward to having my flower beds not full of weeds in the middle of May!" she said.