2024 Tulip Festival poster unveiled, plans underway

New Skagit Valley Tulip Festival Executive Director Nicole Roozen attended her first festival event last Tuesday, Nov. 16, the unveiling of the official poster and branded merchandise. The ceremony jumpstarts 2024 festival activities.

The large crowd at Skagit Acres buzzed with excitement, and cheers erupted periodically through the evening's program, getting the festival started in the right direction. Roozen concluded her remarks with a rousing, "Let's make the 2024 Skagit Valley Tulip Festival the best year yet!"

"It really just feels good and that's what I'm about," Roozen told the Weekly News. "It's good to see the community come out."

The festival celebrates tulips, of course, but Roozen told the crowd that the organization's mission also embraces the Skagit community and its businesses, as well as advocating for agriculture. She hopes to tell the stories of the people and all the work that goes into making "the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival ... one of the must-see destinations."

This year's featured artist is local photographer Gary Brown. The poster image captures a quintessential Skagit spring: a field of almost endless red tulips graced by early morning light with a barn and other buildings in a shadowed, misty background.

Tulip Festival posters almost never use photographs, so it is a fitting transition. Brown recently retired from his career as a physician, and Roozen is the festival's first new executive director since Cindy Verge took over in 2003.

Brown's tulip image will appear on some labels for official products, several revealed Tuesday. The products range from beer and wine to jewelry and candles.

Brown started this year's storytelling by recounting the kindness he has found in the community, which helped him capture the image.

One morning, Brown drove down Beaver Marsh Road scouting for good places to photograph. He saw a promising field but had nowhere to park. Later, he noticed a sign in one home's yard inviting the public to park for free, asking only that people pick up their trash and be respectful of property. It is this sort of welcoming attitude Brown has experienced again and again since he moved here in 1977 to practice medicine.

Brown returned later, parked in the open yard and headed to the field. He was the only one there in the cold, spring dawn. A photographer needs time, luck and vision, Brown told the assembled crowd. With this photograph, Brown said, "It all combined." When the selection committee chose this image out of the couple dozen he submitted, Brown was surprised, but pleased. All the details of that morning and the friendly neighbors rushed back to him.

The couple have since died. Some of their children and friends attended the unveiling event. "I kind of dedicated the poster to them," Brown said, "because they stand for the kind of community that I've became part of and that I've become proud of."

At the unveiling, Rachael Woods, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival board president, was master of ceremonies. The many sponsors she thanked and volunteers and staff she acknowledged exemplify the type of community Brown spoke of and represents.