Keepers of the blossom: How Darci Christoferson and Erin Roberts cultivate Apple Blossom Festival

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Washington State Apple Blossom Festival office and events coordinator Erin Roberts poses for a portrait at Memorial Park Friday, May 1, 2026, in Wenatchee.

Stewardship in an orchard is rarely dramatic. It means pruning in winter when branches look bare, watching the weather and trusting roots you cannot see. It means knowing blossoms, when they come, arrive because of work done long before anyone noticed.

The same could be said of the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival.

For 107 years, the Wenatchee Valley's signature celebration has filled each spring with color, music and crowds: floats rolling, children waving, marching bands turning corners and funnel cakes sweetening the air. Behind the scenes, in an office of overlapping calendars and stacked clipboards, two women have long helped guide the work: Administrator Darci Christoferson and Office and Events Coordinator Erin Roberts.

This year, that role has taken on added significance.

Christoferson has been traveling to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after her husband, Jeff, suffered a serious accident. With festival week arriving as scheduled, much of the daily operation has fallen to Roberts.

The situation reflects the structure of the festival: continuity, trust and readiness when others must step away.

"We really are a great team," Christoferson said. "We're both focused in our own areas, but we also know about each other's areas."

The festival has two paid staff members. The rest of the work is carried out by volunteers, making institutional knowledge and collaboration essential.

"Basically, all my information is in my head," Christoferson said with a laugh. "But she gets it. She is so organized and understands everything that is taking place."

Roberts, a 2014 graduate of Eastmont High School, did not initially envision working with the festival. She focused on sports in school and recalled receiving, but not opening, a letter about Apple Blossom royalty.

"No," she said, laughing when asked if she had interest then. "I didn't."

After attending Washington State University and Wenatchee Valley College, and spending a year in North Carolina doing volunteer work, Roberts returned home unsure of her next step. Encouraged by her mother, she applied for a position with the festival.

"She said, ‘You'd be great at this,'" Roberts said. "I said, ‘Absolutely not.'"

She applied, interviewed via Skype and was hired in fall 2018. Her first festival coincided with the 100th anniversary. Founders' descendants came from New Zealand. Expectations were high.

"I had no idea what was going on," she said. "I knew nothing about Apple Blossom."

Subsequent years brought additional challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing adjustments.

"It's funny how that's worked out," Christoferson said. "Every year has kind of been a learning, stressful year for her."

Christoferson credited Roberts with modernizing operations, including the website, social media, graphics and communications systems.

"She's done such a great job," Christoferson said. "We've come up with so many new things and new ways of doing things that are so much easier. Really, it's because of her."

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Washington State Apple Blossom Festival administrator Darci Christoferson smiles as she watches Apple Blossom Top 10 royalty candidate Samantha Dodd walk the stage after an introduction Jan. 25, 2024, at the Numerica Performing Arts Center.

Roberts speaks less about systems than about people. What she loves most, she said, is how many different personalities converge to make 11 days feel seamless. Volunteers whose gifts are oddly specific and absolutely necessary. People who do jobs she would never choose, but without whom nothing works.

"There's certain people who you wouldn't think they would love doing what they do for the festival, but they do," Roberts said. "And it's such an integral part of creating a festival."

Roberts prefers to work behind the scenes.

"The reason I didn't even want to take the Apple Blossom job is because of this type of stuff," she said. "Don't even say my name."

She likes making the paperwork look nice, making the machinery run. Public speaking still makes her sound, she joked, "like I'm about to cry." But hidden work is often the truest work.

This year, while carrying festival duties, Roberts is also seven weeks away from welcoming her first child with her husband, Nathan, whom she met as a neighbor and married last June.

Outside of festival season, their life is quieter: house projects, camping, evenings together. Nathan is devoted to lawn care. Roberts tends flower beds.

She loves hydrangeas and is exploring the ritual of perennials.

"I like the routine," she said. "Then they're going to come back next year."

Christoferson, who has weathered her own seasons with the festival, including breaking her ankle earlier this year, said there is no anxiety about Roberts taking maternity leave after the event.

"We all did it," she said. "Having babies during Apple Blossom and the auction is nothing to us."

Nothing to them, perhaps, because women like these have always understood how life and labor intertwine, that blooms come while someone is tired, worried, expecting, grieving, driving west on Highway 2, answering texts from a hospital room.

As floats line up and grandstands fill, most festivalgoers will see only what they are meant to see: pageantry polished to perfection. They may not notice the unseen grafts holding the tree together.

But every orchardist knows the fruit is only the final chapter. First there is tending. First there is trust. First there are those who keep watch over the blossom.

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