00;00;03;04 – 00;00;25;08
Mark Wilson
The pursuit of podcast a purely guest centric show focusing on people and organizations that advance positive change. Positivity can be anywhere and in a time of vast discord. The pursuit of this finding those who oppose its causes loudest. Join us as we sit and learn about the pursuits of local leaders in their communities. Let’s go.

00;00;25;10 – 00;00;37;28
Ryan Buck
Hello good people and welcome to the pursuit of podcast where it’s truly not us, it’s you. I’m Ryan Buck, Artist Development, New Leonard Media with me is The Boss. Mark Wilson, President, New Leonard Media. How are you, Ryan?

00;00;37;29 – 00;00;41;29
Mark Wilson
I’m doing fabulous today. Yeah, I got a good matching outfit on and.

00;00;42;02 – 00;00;54;03
Ryan Buck
That is way too much. I’m embarrassed for both of us. More importantly today, our guest is Kat Paye, CEO Festival Foundation here in Traverse City. How are you?

00;00;54;04 – 00;00;55;17
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I’m good.

00;00;55;19 – 00;01;06;01
Ryan Buck
You know, what’s fascinating about this is that I think I can say your name, and that’s pretty good. But I say first of all, foundation, we were just talking about this. Are people maybe scratching their heads?

00;01;06;03 – 00;01;18;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, probably. Probably. I think they’re getting it slowly. We’ve just had our first Couple Festival foundation events, a gala and so on last February. But up until now, I don’t think people really know what the Festival Foundation does, really.

00;01;18;18 – 00;01;39;12
Ryan Buck
Okay. So I’m going to start with a question that I’ve started with recently that’s kind of fun. And I think because it’s you, I’m really excited about this particular question. I know why. So you’ll put yourself into a headspace of post-COVID. We’re just talking about lousy things that happened during COVID, but now we’re out of that and we’re seeing each other again.

00;01;39;12 – 00;01;52;19
Ryan Buck
Here we are on a podcast together. So you’re at an event business or social, a party party. We do that again, right? Yeah. So you’re at a party and somebody comes up to you and says, Hey, what do you do? What’s the response? The party response. Hey, what do you do?

00;01;52;21 – 00;02;14;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, usually my answer is something more of a I create generations of fun and memories for those around us and celebrate agriculture. And then they go, Oh, okay. And I said, Well, I’m the executive director of the National Cherry Festival, The Iceman Cometh, the Charity Ball, Drop the Leaping Leprechaun, five K and they are want. He said, Yep, I’ll run by the Festival Foundation.

00;02;14;18 – 00;02;22;13
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And they go, I had no idea the National Cherry Festival did all those things. I say, Well, the National Cherry Festival doesn’t, but the Festival Foundation does.

00;02;22;15 – 00;02;45;10
Ryan Buck
I’m delighted right now because it’s one of those things that it’s such a question that we’re used to, and the answer is fascinating. So you said the first thing you said, let’s say you stop there. Yeah. And that’s enough to get a semi-circle of people around you. What kind of questions, aside from maybe the questions you just talked about, what kind of questions at the setting do you normally get and are they usually good ones?

00;02;45;12 – 00;02;50;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
The biggest question I get is that a full time job is the best question. Always get.

00;02;50;01 – 00;02;53;17
Ryan Buck
Right incredulously. Like they pay you to do this or.

00;02;53;17 – 00;03;25;10
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I think they’re just confused that a festival is actually a full time job year around. And I said, Oh yeah, not only is it my full time job, but we have five or six people in our office. It’s their full time job too. And they go, Really? I think people believe that in the open Space park, for example, at the National Cherry Festival, there’s like a button in the ground we push and it all just erects out of the ground because people forget that we have to set up an entire city and everything has to be ordered, whether it’s a Porta John, an electrical cord, some electrical inspection, whether the fire department has to approve

00;03;25;10 – 00;03;34;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
a street closure for a parade, the festival of races. We can’t just run out on Peninsula Drive without approval of Peninsula Township, which means there’s permitting applications, approvals.

00;03;34;27 – 00;03;40;18
Ryan Buck
We need to cancel our pursuit of the streaking. Yeah, Yeah. You know.

00;03;40;26 – 00;03;41;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You might want a permit first.

00;03;41;26 – 00;04;00;15
Ryan Buck
Yeah, well, that was a wonderfully humble way of putting it and encapsulating all the things that you have to do and the team of people around you that have to do. But do you ever feel simultaneously like the most adored and reviled person in Traverse City?

00;04;00;21 – 00;04;03;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You know, it depends on the day. So yeah, sometimes.

00;04;03;15 – 00;04;17;27
Ryan Buck
I didn’t mean for that to be snarky in any way. We’re talking about this like it’s a question I personally wanted to ask. Yeah, because you’re a human. Yes, right. And that’s clearly obvious. Unless we’re breaking some news here.

00;04;17;28 – 00;04;18;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
No, I.

00;04;18;14 – 00;04;38;07
Ryan Buck
Mean, you’re a person who has a full time job, everybody. So you’re paid with a team and you have something to do that’s pretty universally celebrated, but also has some people who aren’t always on board. Yeah. So do you let that move you? Do you not think about it, the duality of that in any way?

00;04;38;13 – 00;04;57;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I think about it. I mean, we get the hate mail too, and I’m not going to lie. It hurts because we try really hard to be positive. We try really hard to create something that is fun for our community and something that’s most part free. 90% of the National Cherry Festival is free to the public, so they’re free kids events, free parades.

00;04;57;05 – 00;05;19;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And we always say that you’ll find something you love if you don’t like the air show or the fireworks. You might love the bubblegum blow or the teddy bear tea or all the ultimate dogs dog jumping. You might love something and not even realize it’s something that we do. The other piece that a lot of people don’t understand about our organization is that we have several giveback events and several ones where our revenue generating.

00;05;19;04 – 00;05;38;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So The Iceman Cometh and the National Cherry Festival are revenue generating for the Festival foundation, right? Charity ball drop. All that money is going back to food insecurity in our community. Food Rescue received $16,000 in just this year alone by working the gates in two and a half hours. That is how much cash they took home. That’s a big deal.

00;05;38;25 – 00;05;43;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
That’s what we want known is we are trying to help and support the community that supports us.

00;05;43;03 – 00;06;03;14
Ryan Buck
That is a big deal. And that’s something regarding the charity ball drop, for example, that I was aware of but not fundamentally aware of. Does that make sense? It does. When we look at nonprofits and there are some trends on this particular show that emerge is that nonprofits don’t need money or don’t generate money. Correct. That nonprofits can’t give money to others.

00;06;03;16 – 00;06;10;21
Ryan Buck
So here you just took some different angles on that pretty quickly, all within the realm of a few events.

00;06;10;26 – 00;06;35;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We tried to find ways to help support our community in very deliberate ways. Our board met and said, okay, how can we do this? Because we didn’t want to look like the giant in the room that was just taking on all these events. And then they go, Well, where’s all the money? Go? Well, we gave over $125,000 in pure cash out every year to nonprofits, whether they are serving at events and they’re serving the beer and the Pepsi and they’re being parade marshals and course marshals for the festival of races.

00;06;35;11 – 00;06;53;10
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Or there are direct recipient of something like the charity Ball Drop has its own mission. So its mission is to help with food insecurity in the community, which is where it started. Right. We respect it and kept that group’s mission alive. The leaping leprechaun that benefits the new family birthing center in Nick you four months and medical center.

00;06;53;12 – 00;07;00;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So we donate between five and 15,000 annually. We donate up to 25,000 now. So I think we might have paid for a chair, right? But we’re.

00;07;00;21 – 00;07;03;28
Ryan Buck
Very. Okay. Well, yes.

00;07;04;00 – 00;07;06;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
They seem like those.

00;07;06;00 – 00;07;08;21
Ryan Buck
Smaller in the grand scheme, but that’s important.

00;07;08;21 – 00;07;31;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s kind of official and we know Medicine Foundation is happy to have it and we’re happy to continue to partner with them until that facility is built. Right. So we look at that and say we’re supporting the littlest leprechauns of our community with that event. And that event was just last weekend. So a lot of people see the bigger events and the Airshows and the concerts, but they don’t always see the little stuff and how the Queen’s program is a scholarship fund.

00;07;31;04 – 00;07;40;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, Queen Olivia is getting an 80 $500 scholarship to college for not only representing our community, but for doing everything she loves. And those are big deals.

00;07;40;08 – 00;08;04;02
Ryan Buck
And you’re traveling with these individuals, You’re creating and talking about that, which is a program that on the surface, somebody who doesn’t know may seem like a vacuous or even outdated premise. But look at what you are doing, right? You’re getting stuck at security, having to explain your various crowns and jewels. Yeah. Have you been accused of, like, you know, hosting jewelry ever?

00;08;04;02 – 00;08;05;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
No.

00;08;05;11 – 00;08;07;21
Ryan Buck
Travel hijinx. Have things happened that you’ve had to deal with?

00;08;07;28 – 00;08;24;04
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I mean, hygiene, things are entertaining. Our queen is very protective of the crown, so she knows as well as we do that that crown if we have to, if the bag does not fit in the overhead compartment or under the seat, the bag can go. That crown is sitting on her lap. She will not let it out of her sight.

00;08;24;09 – 00;08;44;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I will take it because, well, our crowns last anywhere from 30 to 50 years. We have all of our original crowns. We have the original cape that was used from Gertrude Brown, our 1926 National Cherry Queen. Oh, my gosh. So we do not allow things to right anyone who is, of course, starved on the airline. They may take the bags.

00;08;44;27 – 00;08;53;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
They may not take the crown. So I’ve had a queen before who sat in her seat and she’s like, this is my personal item with her crown on her lap. Yeah.

00;08;53;05 – 00;09;07;04
Ryan Buck
Okay. And we talked about this a little ahead of time. What a great story Anybody hearing walking on is going to go Traverse City. And then maybe it’s a nugget that I mean, you’re ambassadors to our area.

00;09;07;06 – 00;09;22;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We are. And we actually had a really fun time. We went to Macon, Georgia, last weekend for the International Cherry Blossom Festival and we met people who knew of the pit spitters and it blew me away there. That’s so cool. Baseball team is called the Macon Beacon. And yes.

00;09;22;15 – 00;09;23;03
Ryan Buck
Really.

00;09;23;04 – 00;09;38;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Their mascot is a strip of bacon with a skillet for a hat. I loved this guy. I had to get a picture with him, which I did, and so did our queen. And we were dying and I could not believe we what we left. They’re like, Wait, from you’re from Traverse City because she wears a sash National Cherry Festival or National Cherry Queen?

00;09;38;04 – 00;09;44;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah. Yeah. And it has the logo. And they were like, Oh, you’re from Traverse City. Do you guys know of the Pit spitters? And I was like, Oh, of course we do.

00;09;44;17 – 00;09;46;06
Ryan Buck
You imagine if you’re like, No.

00;09;46;09 – 00;09;59;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, and the other people who are actually showing us around are like, How do they know where you’re from? And I was like, Because we bring cherries everywhere we go. And so we handed off dried cherries, this wonderful gentleman at the home of the Macon Bacon. And we’re dying thinking how great this is.

00;09;59;10 – 00;10;06;29
Ryan Buck
Props to the bacon. Bacon and I love that there could be so many food based community crossovers.

00;10;07;00 – 00;10;07;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, we’re.

00;10;07;21 – 00;10;13;16
Ryan Buck
You know, because the baseball teams spitting pits they’ve got bacon, cherries and bacon. I don’t know of a dish.

00;10;13;19 – 00;10;15;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
That cherry pancakes, bacon.

00;10;15;03 – 00;10;16;00
Ryan Buck
Broccoli. There you go.

00;10;16;01 – 00;10;18;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We did it. We have a breakfast food bond.

00;10;18;17 – 00;10;24;06
Ryan Buck
Yeah, it’s good. What are you working on right now at this moment? Is it exciting or is it routine?

00;10;24;06 – 00;10;37;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, we are 98 days from the National Cherry Festival. Yeah, we do count down. It’s sick and wrong and also exciting. I say it all the time in our office and the staff just cringes. It’s on our website too, so people can also count down with us. We also the countdown.

00;10;37;18 – 00;10;40;26
Ryan Buck
Is that a good way to say that you’re always working on something?

00;10;40;29 – 00;10;58;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s usually big on something. You know, we’ve got concert announcements right now. We just made our fifth one earlier this week and so we are constantly announcing something. Air show events went on sale today, so the flight deck, the Delamar, the Indigo out work, you know, instantly leading up to something that we’re announcing and something that we’re talking about.

00;10;58;03 – 00;11;02;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And one thing we have not announced yet, which is super exciting, is bingo is back.

00;11;02;29 – 00;11;05;20
Mark Wilson
Oh, really? I know.

00;11;05;22 – 00;11;06;07
Ryan Buck
Oh, my gosh.

00;11;06;08 – 00;11;11;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You knew that was more exciting than, like, theory of a dead man. The skillet right now with bingo. Bingo is the excitement.

00;11;11;22 – 00;11;26;18
Ryan Buck
Okay, so you get to be as many things to as many people as possible. You can say maybe Rio in the way that you have to or Skillet or bingo. And then somebody is going to be delighted. Yes. You went to Lake Superior State University.

00;11;26;19 – 00;11;27;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I did.

00;11;27;09 – 00;11;40;04
Ryan Buck
And you received your B.A. from Davenport University? I did go Panthers thinking as far back as you could kind of articulate these concepts. What was the dream, the plan and the reality for.

00;11;40;04 – 00;11;41;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You of how I ended up here?

00;11;41;18 – 00;11;43;24
Ryan Buck
Anything is far back. However.

00;11;43;26 – 00;11;59;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
When I was eight, I started volunteering for the National Cherry Festival. I was scooping ice and I was pinning numbers on racers for the wheelchair Mile, which is my favorite event. I had a very wonderful human in my life. His name was Jeff Nash and he was a quadriplegic and I was his hands and feet at the race.

00;11;59;05 – 00;12;16;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So I was the one who pinned the numbers on racers. He was an amazing human, meant a great deal to me, and he passed about ten years ago and he was a father figure to me. So when I was younger, I was always looking for a way to continue to do the festival. So I went to college to be a teacher because they have their summers off and this was my motivation.

00;12;16;19 – 00;12;26;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I was like, I’m going to go teach elementary school so that I can volunteer at the church. But I never had it in my head that I was going to do this job. So I was like, Oh, that I can volunteer. Yeah, great.

00;12;27;00 – 00;12;28;16
Ryan Buck
To have any teacher friends or I.

00;12;28;16 – 00;12;28;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Do.

00;12;29;03 – 00;12;31;13
Ryan Buck
That’s great. You know, they’re all freaking out right now when you say that.

00;12;31;13 – 00;12;31;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, they are.

00;12;31;27 – 00;12;33;00
Ryan Buck
You did that on purpose?

00;12;33;00 – 00;12;34;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah. They’re all really hating me right now.

00;12;34;07 – 00;12;35;28
Ryan Buck
You’re wonderful. Thank you for being here.

00;12;35;29 – 00;12;46;23
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, they’re really. They’re crazy. I’m way. Yeah, I hear about this later. Yeah, that was in my head when I was like, you know, I was 18. That made the most sense. Yeah, well, partway through college, I was like, I don’t think I want to be a teacher.

00;12;46;23 – 00;12;52;17
Ryan Buck
It wasn’t. It couldn’t have just been summers off. If me if I may casually dig a tad.

00;12;52;18 – 00;13;15;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I love children. I love being a part of a classroom. I actually do love I periodically get the privilege to go to CMU and Ferris and Grand Valley and guest speak to tourism and recreation management classes and I actually do really enjoy it. So I really did love that idea of teaching and I love children. I’m a Sunday school teacher when I don’t do this in my day job.

00;13;15;04 – 00;13;18;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So I actually do really love working with children. So that was kind of my mode.

00;13;18;18 – 00;13;22;12
Ryan Buck
Which is probably the one day you have off one time once.

00;13;22;14 – 00;13;23;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Hey, it’s great.

00;13;23;03 – 00;13;24;04
Ryan Buck
And you do that.

00;13;24;04 – 00;13;25;25
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Oh.

00;13;25;28 – 00;13;28;03
Ryan Buck
I have. And I believe you 1,000%.

00;13;28;03 – 00;13;38;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I have a classroom of 2 to 5 year old. I have 18 of them on a Sunday morning. And they are I call it the goldfish ministry, because we really just eat a lot of snacks, mostly goldfish and Cheerios. But I digress In.

00;13;38;11 – 00;13;39;03
Ryan Buck
The best snacks.

00;13;39;03 – 00;13;58;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I know, arguably. So when I was leaving Lake State, I did leave partway through my career up there and I came home and I decided to go get my business degree from Davenport locally here at the University Center. And that made the most sense. And I was working for Haggerty Insurance, which I loved back in like 2010, and I was still volunteering for the festival.

00;13;58;28 – 00;14;19;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And I moved my positions at Haggerty from Auto and Marine to claims because claims said, Well, we’ll give you the two weeks off to go volunteer at the festival because I was the operations director for festival, right? So I really needed these two weeks off and they said, Well, if you come to our department, we’ll agree to you can have like because that was kind of blackout time at Haggerty.

00;14;19;08 – 00;14;34;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Like you didn’t get two weeks off together, right? Easily Not in July, no. And so I and we negotiated. I got it. And I was like, okay, I’ll come work the claims and I’ll do that. And I did that for a couple of years. And then I moved to passageways, travel, and I did incentive trips and things like that for their division.

00;14;34;19 – 00;14;39;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And I was still and I was on the board for the Cherry Festival, and I was there when they hired Driver.

00;14;39;28 – 00;14;41;28
Mark Wilson
What years were you? PASSAGEWAYS two.

00;14;41;28 – 00;14;44;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Thousand 11.

00;14;44;07 – 00;14;44;24
Mark Wilson
Oh, okay.

00;14;44;25 – 00;14;45;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Okay.

00;14;45;05 – 00;14;48;18
Ryan Buck
I think is that before the Opera House because you.

00;14;48;21 – 00;14;48;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Were at.

00;14;48;26 – 00;14;53;11
Ryan Buck
The Opera House a large part of the time, a trend is emerging. You don’t like to sit still?

00;14;53;11 – 00;14;54;01
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I do not.

00;14;54;01 – 00;14;57;07
Ryan Buck
I wonder, you know, where other people in your life may get this?

00;14;57;09 – 00;14;58;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I don’t know, but they’re all the same. But just.

00;14;58;28 – 00;15;01;01
Ryan Buck
In case any of them are hearing or may hear.

00;15;01;01 – 00;15;04;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yes, they are aware. I never once held less than like one job at a time.

00;15;04;20 – 00;15;10;11
Ryan Buck
And this kind of energy in this kind of a wonderful quality can be a good thing and lead to a fulfilling.

00;15;10;13 – 00;15;23;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It does, yes. Lifestyle. So I worked as a city opera house house manager for ten years, and I did it like once a month or twice a month. And it was a lot of fun. I always call it my fun job. It was so much fun to get to come in there and all the events that would happen.

00;15;23;05 – 00;15;41;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And you’re basically like a host as a house manager, you opened the doors, you had to come in. If they were renting it out for like, I don’t know how many swing shift in the stars I’ve seen over the years, but it was amazing because I was always their house manager. It always turned out it’s been a lot of fun and I moved from that to I was on the board with the festival, the national chain.

00;15;41;26 – 00;15;44;00
Ryan Buck
You were on the board at 20 years old.

00;15;44;00 – 00;15;45;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Something insane like that sounds all right.

00;15;45;24 – 00;15;47;14
Ryan Buck
So I’m not talking out of school, right?

00;15;47;15 – 00;15;47;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I think.

00;15;47;26 – 00;15;48;09
Ryan Buck
It was it.

00;15;48;09 – 00;15;51;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Was it was not quite 20, but it was in my later twenties.

00;15;52;01 – 00;16;00;23
Ryan Buck
So you were in your twenties on the board of what we can arguably say is a world renowned and recognized.

00;16;00;23 – 00;16;02;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Folks that would say, yes, it is very much.

00;16;02;27 – 00;16;17;08
Ryan Buck
So. And when you look back, you know, you were at a legacy company like. HAGERTY Were you ever you got a lot to offer. You bring so much to the table? Yeah. Were there any pulls to the corporate life, the 9 to 5, the money?

00;16;17;09 – 00;16;17;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
No.

00;16;17;20 – 00;16;20;09
Ryan Buck
The any of those things? Because.

00;16;20;09 – 00;16;22;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
No, it wasn’t my passion.

00;16;22;11 – 00;16;23;21
Ryan Buck
Forget it. I don’t even need to finish that.

00;16;23;21 – 00;16;41;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It wasn’t my passion. It was that what I loved. I mean, when I was at HAGERTY, I was also I worked for the opera House. I later worked for Cherry Republic, and I did their catalog sales at Christmas. Again, I can’t sit still. So I was the person. I answered the phones and took orders over the phone. I love talking about cherries, and so that made a lot of sense.

00;16;41;16 – 00;16;54;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And Trevor was not the executive director yet. When I was on the board, Tim Hinkley was the executive director. And then Trevor came on and I was on the board That helped hire Trevor. Yeah. And then a couple of years later.

00;16;54;29 – 00;16;55;24
Ryan Buck
This is Trevor.

00;16;55;26 – 00;17;12;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Scott Yeah. Turcotte And then later Trevor had parted ways with our operations director and it was up three months to first of all, yeah. And he called me and he’s like, So since you do it on a volunteer basis, the employee that did this is no longer now with us. And I said, Well, that employee runs your meeting in 30 minutes.

00;17;12;11 – 00;17;31;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And he was like, What is the event director meeting is in 30 minutes that that person runs. So what’s your plan? And he was like, meet you there in ten. And I was like, okay, great. Look, you now need to inform 150th and director is that the person that they all talk to about everything is now no longer the person they talk to.

00;17;31;10 – 00;17;40;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And a few weeks later he called me. I was like, What is it going to take to have you come work at the festival? All right. So I did both. I worked Passageways and the Cherry Festival.

00;17;40;08 – 00;17;44;01
Ryan Buck
What did you think about it for a second? What were the. I’m just curious.

00;17;44;01 – 00;18;04;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It was really actually was a really hard. I did not want to give my seat up on the board. I had a really hard time with this. There was a lot of thought process. There was a lot of talking to my family because I said if the festival is going to pay me, which they technically have to pay for what they want me to do, right, I have to resign the board and I’d only been on the board for like a year and a half or two years.

00;18;04;18 – 00;18;23;04
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I didn’t feel my time was done, but I also knew the organization needed me in this capacity because it was April, then the festivals in July, and I was like, I’m the only one who knows enough that’s going to be. And he’s asked me and I need to serve the organization in the way that I’m being asked. And so I cried.

00;18;23;04 – 00;18;59;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I cried for hours writing my resignation letter to the president. And I asked very nicely. I said, if I because this was for a few months come July, I didn’t know if this was going to continue or if I had just walked away from something. So they agreed to my letter and it said, once I’m no longer a contractor with the festival, then the board would openly discuss having me back if that didn’t continue because I was very nervous and I made Trevor sign a letter saying that if my contract, my contractual agreement like didn’t pan out, I could still volunteer because the idea of giving up my whole dream of and how long I

00;18;59;12 – 00;19;14;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
had been a part of the festival family, I didn’t want to give it up. Right? If so, if something went south, I needed I need I saw my letter from Trevor where I was like, I can still volunteer if this doesn’t pan out right, because I can’t imagine doing anything else but.

00;19;14;12 – 00;19;26;10
Ryan Buck
Just a lot of heart in the process because, you know, they’re clearly making the right moves to accommodate somebody who I want. I’ll ask you, why do you think they did what they did to put you into that position?

00;19;26;11 – 00;19;27;10
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, I think what.

00;19;27;12 – 00;19;28;25
Ryan Buck
Deep down, if you want to comment.

00;19;28;28 – 00;19;35;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Trevor was very open about the fact he didn’t want to break the festival kid. So there is a lot of times the.

00;19;35;22 – 00;19;36;16
Ryan Buck
Festival kid.

00;19;36;16 – 00;19;37;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
The festival kid. I grew up on the.

00;19;37;22 – 00;19;40;17
Ryan Buck
Festival and that was your moniker. That was your.

00;19;40;22 – 00;19;48;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
That is the way a lot of our volunteers will still look at me. I have volunteers that have been there 50 or 60 years. They are all like my parents.

00;19;48;03 – 00;19;53;21
Ryan Buck
In a matthew Broderick sort of way that you look eternally young because you do. But or that they.

00;19;53;23 – 00;19;54;10
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Say, I’m still.

00;19;54;11 – 00;19;55;26
Ryan Buck
The eight year old pinning the thing.

00;19;55;28 – 00;20;01;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I’m still eight riding on the back of Jeff’s wheelchair like and they will all still tell me that and I find it very endearing. And is it.

00;20;01;12 – 00;20;03;16
Ryan Buck
Ever a problem from a business perspective?

00;20;03;16 – 00;20;19;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It can be. It has been better over the years. It’s been easier for me to get past that in a lot of ways. But I would say initially, especially when I became the executive director six years ago, right, Challenging. There are challenges when I get called kiddo or Sweetheart or.

00;20;20;01 – 00;20;29;28
Mark Wilson
Powdered bottom syndrome, it’s firm. So so the same I mean, the tribe has it the same because we’re all family. And so there’s several aunties that have changed your diapers and.

00;20;29;28 – 00;20;31;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So pretty much.

00;20;31;02 – 00;20;31;22
Mark Wilson
Yeah.

00;20;31;24 – 00;20;33;01
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yep, that’s exactly that.

00;20;33;02 – 00;20;35;10
Mark Wilson
Our time for them to not look at you that way.

00;20;35;10 – 00;20;37;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It is.

00;20;37;03 – 00;20;49;18
Ryan Buck
You seem to be taking it with some sort of endearment and not in a negative way. Yeah, because this festival, this organization is in the fabric of your DNA. I can tell you feel very.

00;20;49;18 – 00;20;50;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Very good way to.

00;20;50;02 – 00;21;16;27
Ryan Buck
Put it. Yeah. I mean, I could ask how many cherry tattoos you have or, you know, like bad days or the pets or whatever, but you clearly live and breathe what the mission is. And it’s it’s about giving back. And a big thing that you give back is supportive agriculture and what maybe gets lost and this is just coming from me is that that message sometimes can get lost in some of the hoopla.

00;21;16;27 – 00;21;23;18
Ryan Buck
Do you find that that’s a struggle for you and how are you looking maybe to address it if it’s something that challenges you a bit?

00;21;23;20 – 00;21;41;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We do. I mean, a lot of people say, oh, we grow grapes here, too, or apples. And I’m like, Yes, but we are. 70% of the nation’s tart cherries are grown right here. And they go wide. I’m like, Oh, yeah, always like, this is a big deal for our region. And that is why we try to include cherries in kind of everything we do.

00;21;41;14 – 00;22;03;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Even at The Iceman Cometh, you will find cherry juice and dried cherries. And as recovery stations on the route, I mean, we’re very focused on the fact that a lot of our mission still stems from incorporating the celebration of cherries. Right. The growers in this community. While yes, a lot of things have changed because people come to me all the time and say, well, there’s more wineries and there are cherry orchards, you’re probably not wrong with.

00;22;03;15 – 00;22;05;21
Ryan Buck
The intent of it should be Winery Fest.

00;22;05;21 – 00;22;10;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yes, people do say, Well, the official because we always argue that we’re the cherry capital of the world. And they say.

00;22;10;20 – 00;22;12;27
Ryan Buck
Well, what you postulate are you you.

00;22;12;29 – 00;22;33;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I’m like, we still have an airport named after this Cherry Capital Airport. Yeah, there’s wings on the Coast Guard helicopter that have cherries on them. I feel like we are still very prominently rooted in cherries. Yeah, I’m still working on the sign for downtown because everyone asks us, where is the sign that says Cherry Capital of the World because they want a photo and we don’t have one.

00;22;33;21 – 00;22;42;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So we’re working on this. This is a been a big thing with Jean over the idea we’ve been working on for a while, but we have to make a more permanent home for photo op.

00;22;42;20 – 00;22;47;25
Mark Wilson
Yeah. Which one is the real largest cherry pie pan?

00;22;47;28 – 00;22;49;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You mean off the record.

00;22;49;07 – 00;22;54;13
Mark Wilson
When you come through Charlevoix and you see their pan and you’re like, Hey, hey, I was there when they see.

00;22;54;13 – 00;22;55;06
Ryan Buck
Their can.

00;22;55;06 – 00;22;56;18
Mark Wilson
Currently here.

00;22;56;20 – 00;22;58;25
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I believe it’s Canada right now that’s holding the.

00;22;59;02 – 00;22;59;19
Ryan Buck
Oh, really?

00;22;59;24 – 00;23;04;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Above Charlevoix. There’s a lot of controversy over this really giant pie.

00;23;04;15 – 00;23;05;25
Mark Wilson
So how deep? How heavy?

00;23;06;01 – 00;23;21;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s a whole thing. It’s how many pounds? How so? To get to the new record, you need to make at least a £50,000 cherry pie, which is large, and to serve it to the public, you need to make it in a commercial kitchen. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone who has an oven that big.

00;23;21;17 – 00;23;40;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So this has been our current big struggle and Sarah Lee has one, but not quite big enough for a round pan because I can say right, our 100th anniversary is in three years we have been talking about a giant pie for at least seven. We have a whole pie committee that has been doing all of the research to figure out because in our world, if we’re going to try to pull this off, it has to be Michigan sugar.

00;23;41;04 – 00;23;57;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So it’s got to be pioneer sugar, right? It’s got to be local cherries. That’s a whole lot of cherries that we need to take in. You have to have an NSF certified pan, which takes at least six months to certify and made out of steel. And then you have to build ovens. So when they did this in the eighties, they built ovens.

00;23;57;17 – 00;24;00;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I have no idea if the health department paid any attention to what happened here.

00;24;00;25 – 00;24;02;10
Ryan Buck
Zero five No.

00;24;02;10 – 00;24;09;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Sucked the like, basically the pie out with vacuums and then put it in little two ounce portion cups and handed it to you.

00;24;09;14 – 00;24;10;03
Ryan Buck
That’s what they did.

00;24;10;03 – 00;24;16;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
This is how. Yes, because people ask us all the time if they were going to do the giant pie and can you slice it? And I was like.

00;24;16;06 – 00;24;16;14
Mark Wilson
Do you.

00;24;16;14 – 00;24;17;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Know how.

00;24;17;02 – 00;24;17;15
Ryan Buck
Big this.

00;24;17;19 – 00;24;18;08
Mark Wilson
Is?

00;24;18;11 – 00;24;19;09
Ryan Buck
I mean, it’s.

00;24;19;09 – 00;24;25;19
Mark Wilson
Good for everybody eating it. Like there should be like a huge you know, there should be like an mm arch or something.

00;24;25;22 – 00;24;31;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, there’s an idea. I was more concerned about the fact that if we didn’t serve it to the public, people would come at us for waste.

00;24;31;05 – 00;24;32;12
Ryan Buck
Wasteful. Yeah.

00;24;32;14 – 00;24;35;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You know, that’s all those cherries, all that ingredients.

00;24;35;00 – 00;24;56;08
Ryan Buck
Yes. So, so feeding those in need in some way and you do a lot and the website is phenomenal about all those types of things. But what I really wanted to dive into and we talked about this a little bit ago, was your poise. You know, you have got to be in front of the media. You have got to deal with detractors, like you said.

00;24;56;11 – 00;25;16;11
Ryan Buck
What has trained you to do what you do? Because it’s fascinating that you have to bear the slings and arrows and you probably don’t get all of the lot and honor either or You brush it right off yourself because I’m just getting that off of you. Yeah. So what trained you to be able to do this so well?

00;25;16;12 – 00;25;37;13
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And one of them was actually Trevor. So Trevor tickled. She was very good to watch. One of the things he told me early on was to accept every interview no matter what. Take every talking experience you get. So whether it is in front of a group and presenting or speaking down at CMU or whatever it is, because it helps you become more confident in what you’re always saying.

00;25;37;15 – 00;25;49;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So take every experience to present, no matter what it is, big or small, you know, they don’t know who they are. Great. Take it. Yeah. So I took that to heart and I do that. One of the things I stopped doing after my first year is watching my interviews.

00;25;49;13 – 00;25;50;02
Ryan Buck
Watching them.

00;25;50;02 – 00;26;04;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah. I don’t watch at all. I don’t watch them at all. So I’m a 910 a lot. I’m on seven and four. I’m on all of the things. Yeah, sometimes weekly. I don’t watch them because you’re your own worst critic. And so I was always the person being like, Oh, my hair is out of place on that one.

00;26;04;07 – 00;26;22;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, I settled on that one. And especially once we came into the time of Zoom. Now if you’ve experienced I’ve experienced some of the podcasts and things that I have done and or Zoom interviews for 910 media, right? I can hear myself and see myself, but I can’t see them. So I don’t know when they’re going to begin talking.

00;26;22;21 – 00;26;23;02
Mark Wilson
Oh.

00;26;23;05 – 00;26;38;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And it’s a really big challenge for me sometimes to be like, I don’t know if you’re going to because I don’t want to talk over them or to do radio interviews by phone. I’ve had to really learn to pause when I’m not in the room with someone or can tell when they’re going to start talking. Right? That has been a challenge.

00;26;38;19 – 00;26;54;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I’ve had to work through my relationships with all of the different on air media over the years of being like, okay, I know this person is going to do this intro or I know this just so it sounds still professional, even though I might be traveling and completely on my cell phone, I have no idea.

00;26;54;24 – 00;27;00;03
Ryan Buck
And you have to do shows with what’s happening. It’s the queen you have. It’s not just you all the time.

00;27;00;04 – 00;27;22;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So and I prep the queen usually, or the Queen’s committee. They’re fantastic to make sure she knows what she’s doing and makes her talking about different subjects. So she’s focusing on the Queen’s program and the cherry industry. I might be focusing on our concert lineup and volunteerism and something else, right? So we try to keep our content similar and make sure that they complement each other so that we’re not just reiterating the same things.

00;27;22;19 – 00;27;39;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And a lot of times our board president travels with us to two media, so we’ll have three people and each one of us has a certain piece right, that we’ve kind of pre done. But Trevor was really instrumental early on and he was one who said, Stop watching your stuff because I would be at home being like, Oh, I’ve been on all this media, and then I’m rewatching it.

00;27;39;29 – 00;27;43;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I’m going, Oh, he didn’t like the way that shirt looked or, Oh, look, the screens behind me.

00;27;43;21 – 00;27;44;12
Ryan Buck
Exhausting.

00;27;44;13 – 00;27;59;17
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I just finally kind of let it go. And that was the most important thing I think I could have done right where I just said, it’s good. And sometimes we get interviewed in the middle of the open space and it’s windy and I’m not going to lie the middle of July. We do not. Books are best.

00;27;59;20 – 00;28;00;17
Ryan Buck
Over here.

00;28;00;17 – 00;28;10;03
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And there’s fun glasses. And I am a person that I am blind about. My glasses and my sunglasses are also prescription, so it’s not like I can put my sunglasses up and like interview because I’m like, I can’t see.

00;28;10;05 – 00;28;34;14
Ryan Buck
Are you conscious of the again, you know, this is a national stage. We’ve had celebrities visit. So it’s not a little thing and it’s not, oh, look how cute this is. Anybody can read the stats, anybody can see the economic impact. But when you look at what it takes to grow something like this or to incorporate something new and to grow it, where do you look for priorities?

00;28;34;14 – 00;28;38;02
Ryan Buck
Where do you look for opportunities with any of the events?

00;28;38;05 – 00;28;59;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Hmm, that’s a really good question. I think we look for we look for both like the growth, but to us, it’s not necessarily to grow monetarily. Could be about awareness of the charities. It could be about awareness of our volunteerism. We have 2400 volunteers. We literally went and trademarked volunteers for the USA for Traverse study because there is no better.

00;28;59;11 – 00;29;03;18
Ryan Buck
Volunteer City USA. Yeah, Really? Yeah. That’s fantastic.

00;29;03;18 – 00;29;21;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, there’s a whole page about it on our website. We are deeply integrated in our volunteerism and not just for Cherry Festival or what we do, but for what this community does. We travel and people are blown away with the amount of volunteers they give us. They have no problem taking the week off and giving us 40 or 60 hours in a week.

00;29;21;19 – 00;29;37;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
They’ll sign up for shifts. They’re like, Well, I signed up for pie eating and then I’m going to go straight to the souvenir tent, and then later I’m in a poor beer and they’ll tell me about their entire day they’ve signed up for. And we could not do it without them, right? We couldn’t, and we know that. So I think our growth and opportunity is we’re looking for more ways to thank our volunteers.

00;29;37;12 – 00;29;52;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You know, we’re in the different the Jimmy Johns and things like that going, okay, can we have some free sub cards? How can we trade something to you? You need a sponsorship or we need some sub cards to thank our volunteers. Right? So I would call it the triangular trade. I’m over here going, okay, I need something from you.

00;29;52;09 – 00;30;10;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You want this from someone else and we know that person. So how can we all work together to make this work? And so that’s been a big initiative of ours, is the volunteer landscape has changed. People aren’t giving as much as they used to. They have younger children. There’s all kinds of reasons. So we’re trying to meet the volunteer where they’re at.

00;30;10;03 – 00;30;26;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
If they can only do four or 6 hours a week, we still want to love on them the same as though someone is giving us a week because you never know that person in 4 to 6 hours. This year might be a 40 hour in five years when their life is changed. And now they brought their kids with them because they think it’s amazing.

00;30;26;16 – 00;30;48;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So we are trying to bring people out of their shells and saying, we have something for you to volunteer for, even if you don’t love crowds, right? There’s something for everyone. And so we really piece that in being very inclusive and trying to make sure that we are really loving on our volunteers because that then gets them to love cherries if they don’t already, which usually they do if they’ve come to work for us already.

00;30;48;08 – 00;30;48;25
Ryan Buck
Right.

00;30;48;28 – 00;31;04;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And it gets them to just feel that volunteer spirit throughout their lives. They might start with the Cherry Festival, but oh, now they’re volunteering in schools, now they’re on the PTO, now they’re doing all this stuff. And that’s what we want to ingrain volunteerism, not just what we do, but community wide.

00;31;04;26 – 00;31;25;18
Ryan Buck
Right. Well, you talked about feedback. Yeah. And you don’t necessarily maybe have to elicit public feedback or take it in, but you get it clearly, you get feedback from from volunteers. So and I didn’t want to gloss over that. How do you take it? How do you Kat, how do you prioritize it before you even start to deal with?

00;31;25;18 – 00;31;28;24
Ryan Buck
How do you address it? So we need a positive end and challenge.

00;31;28;27 – 00;31;44;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It is both. And I get them a lot to my personal email. I get them mailed to my house sometimes I get them mailed to our office, but I get calls on my cell phone. If a volunteer needs me and I allow any one of our staff members to give my cell phone number out, it is not a it is not a problem.

00;31;44;08 – 00;31;47;20
Ryan Buck
It’s not going to be in the show notes anyway. So.

00;31;47;22 – 00;31;49;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, one time the recording I printed it.

00;31;49;16 – 00;31;51;07
Mark Wilson
So your personal number?

00;31;51;08 – 00;31;53;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yes. Well, it is. It’s my personal number and mine.

00;31;53;15 – 00;31;55;19
Ryan Buck
Work, but it’s my mail.

00;31;55;21 – 00;32;13;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
But it is part of what I consider part of the job. If a volunteer is disgruntled or a guest is disgruntled in any way, shape or form, I want to know about it because it’s usually the little things that we can make better just by listening. What is the issue? Sometimes this won’t be heard, so I will. I will call back every single one of them.

00;32;13;08 – 00;32;28;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I will email them back, whatever they want. A lot of times I email them my email signature. I have my cell phone number in it. Call me, you have a problem. I will take care of it. We had a gentleman who I think it was last year. His TV fell off his mantel because the Blue Angels flew too fast or low over his home.

00;32;28;17 – 00;32;46;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And I said, okay, all right, what is the problem here? He’s like, Well, that was $130 TV. And him like, okay, please stop by our office later today and there’s a check for you at the front desk. And he was like, That’s it. I said, Yes. And also there are some straps that I would like you to use on the TV to connect it to the wall so this won’t happen in the future.

00;32;46;00 – 00;33;01;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And he was like, I’ve never had anyone just take care of that. And I said, If this is all it’s going to take to fix it, I’m happy to do that. And that’s what we do with our volunteers. Well, what was the experience? Okay, Your negative experience was what it was with an event director. It was with another volunteer.

00;33;01;08 – 00;33;18;01
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It was because we had you volunteer too late. Or like the shuttles we love beta. Beta is an amazing partner and they run the baseline. The baseline doesn’t run as late as we need to. And they said, Well, then why don’t you let your event director know that you need to leave earlier? This is an easy fix. We let event directors know bailout only runs to 11.

00;33;18;01 – 00;33;32;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I know beer tent has to clean up at 1130. Let’s have the people that drove themselves that are able to do that find out early in their shift that these folks have to get out of here because they have to catch the baseline back to their cars. So we communicate and find solutions.

00;33;32;00 – 00;33;41;04
Ryan Buck
You don’t need to know all of this. You don’t need to handle all of this. You don’t need to have reimbursed under $30. TV Why are you doing it?

00;33;41;10 – 00;34;00;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Because it’s important to me that we support that community, because that one person who had his TV fall off his mantle, That’s a negative experience. And he is going to go tell 30 or 40 more people about his negative experience versus his positive right. But he might tell us positive and say, well, yeah, it fell off the medal, but the festival took care of it.

00;34;00;17 – 00;34;04;17
Ryan Buck
Well, that’s not the mentality of a world recognized festival.

00;34;04;24 – 00;34;28;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, it’s the mentality of a community driven festival. Right. And that I mean, that’s what I’d say, you know, we are, yes. A top ten festival in the country. But we also and we will say it time and time again, we want to support the community that supports us. If we have another nonprofit in this community doing something amazing and needs support in some way and we are able to help support them, sign this up.

00;34;28;29 – 00;34;40;25
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And that is from loaning out fencing and equipment to other nonprofits. I don’t think there’s an event in this town that happens without some sort of something from our warehouse. We just own a lot of things.

00;34;40;26 – 00;35;02;14
Ryan Buck
It’s a small community. And then again, when you talk about the numbers that you draw and you look around, just personal interjection, you know, I’m here from big cities, and when people talk about traffic here, I do snicker a little bit because and I used to say we have one slight traffic jam a year. It’s typically around 4th of July weekend and we have a year to prepare for it.

00;35;02;17 – 00;35;28;14
Ryan Buck
Yeah, and it’s not that bad. So all that’s relative, right? You bring this in and all these people have good will and I’m exhausted talking to you because I see you reading that email about that $130 TV. Yeah. At probably 1030 at night after you’ve put a young one to bed for the third time. Yeah. And are praying that he stays asleep this time.

00;35;28;20 – 00;35;44;16
Ryan Buck
Yeah. And you mentioned Trevor. Is there anybody else in your life or in your business or professional world that was as dedicated because it’s rare to talk to somebody like that. Was there something else that created a spark that make you that intense?

00;35;44;18 – 00;35;58;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
There are I mean, there is there’s a lot of people that have been influential in my life and very strong supporters who are just incredible people. One was back in college. Mark just North was my advisor in our student alumni involved for Lake State Group, our sales group.

00;35;58;28 – 00;36;02;08
Ryan Buck
And he you were really involved in college. I mean, you did.

00;36;02;08 – 00;36;03;01
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I really did.

00;36;03;01 – 00;36;08;10
Ryan Buck
A lot of thing. You can kind of tell that this not staying in place was starting.

00;36;08;10 – 00;36;27;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah I was a person that attended more meetings than I did classes. I was very much me and I was like, Oh, well, history can wait because we have an activities Board event over here. I did the winter carnivals and I was on Student Activities Board and I just love events. I find that I will never miss a parade in any community I go to.

00;36;27;10 – 00;36;30;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I find that parades are rolling storybooks of community and that’s.

00;36;30;21 – 00;36;37;19
Ryan Buck
Is that a thing? Do you seek out obscure parades across the country? And is there a parade trail a lot like the Sideways Wayne Trail?

00;36;37;19 – 00;36;38;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So but now that’s a good idea.

00;36;38;28 – 00;36;39;17
Ryan Buck
There’s your book.

00;36;39;17 – 00;36;40;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I know I am going to.

00;36;40;29 – 00;36;42;01
Ryan Buck
See your parades with.

00;36;42;01 – 00;36;42;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
That.

00;36;42;29 – 00;36;50;00
Ryan Buck
So you can visit in little towns because there’s probably a food affiliated with a tradition, something cultural, giving back.

00;36;50;02 – 00;36;53;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I can sense a parade. I’m that person where I will. We were out of.

00;36;53;23 – 00;36;54;21
Ryan Buck
That parade there.

00;36;54;23 – 00;37;06;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, I will. Retta we were in a I don’t remember where we were. It was Kansas City, I think, or city, and someone said, Oh my gosh, it’s a parade. And I’m like, I felt it. And I ran inside and watching marching bands go down the road and I was so excited.

00;37;06;11 – 00;37;11;08
Ryan Buck
This is an enviable skill and like a friend, I wish I had a friend who could do that. Like.

00;37;11;11 – 00;37;11;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s amazing.

00;37;11;28 – 00;37;12;28
Ryan Buck
There’s a parade somewhere.

00;37;12;28 – 00;37;18;04
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It is amazing. I’m going to the Pegasus Parade, which is for the Kentucky Derby Festival at the end of the month. And I’ve never been.

00;37;18;07 – 00;37;19;20
Ryan Buck
Really is that fancy?

00;37;19;21 – 00;37;22;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
But that’s what I heard. I don’t know. I haven’t been.

00;37;22;22 – 00;37;23;24
Ryan Buck
Well, I have a.

00;37;23;24 – 00;37;24;25
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Follow up later on that I.

00;37;24;25 – 00;37;39;25
Ryan Buck
Mentioned that I have a bit of a visual thing and it’s just something for me to read. Oh, no. Okay. And it’s a little bit of a memory lane maybe for you, but it’s from the year of 2017, and it’s a day in your life. Oh, good. Now, this is this is early.

00;37;39;26 – 00;37;41;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I know it’s one says, Oh, you do?

00;37;41;05 – 00;38;02;19
Ryan Buck
Okay, this is early on. So just bear with. Yeah because your typical day is executive director. You were maybe newish in the role. It’s unpredictable. You juggle hundreds of phone calls, volunteers and staff members. We just talked about this in the thousands. You’ve got potential to an angry band, say, and a manager, a groupie. I don’t know if something’s happening there with the music thing.

00;38;02;21 – 00;38;27;21
Ryan Buck
So this is a just a day in the life for you in 2017, starting at 720, made the day your review staff within minutes received a phone call about an issue at the volunteer tent. 730 stop at nine and ten news for an interview. 923 So following interview 923 connect with volunteers 931 Receive a call from volunteer and now this is a chronicle of your day.

00;38;27;24 – 00;38;30;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, the Davenport review staff was with me for the day. Yeah.

00;38;30;21 – 00;38;56;00
Ryan Buck
Yeah. They love you there. So you’re receiving a call from volunteer regarding the painting contest. 948 dropped by the NC F warehouse Talk Volunteer is about the Johnsonville Grille propane tank for the parades. Very important parades. You sense them. 958 arrive at Jimmy John’s to pick up donated sandwiches for the golf outing. Who knew? Golf outing 1006 while driving.

00;38;56;00 – 00;39;16;26
Ryan Buck
Take a call from nine and ten News. They’re requesting an on site interview for a special kids day 1030 Main great sponsors of the golf outing 1110 jumping the official National Cherry Fest Toyota courtesy car drive to the royal pageant fashion and luncheon you probably didn’t need at this luncheon. You don’t have to come. And I guarantee you didn’t 1130.

00;39;16;27 – 00;39;18;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Change the fashion show.

00;39;18;21 – 00;39;45;04
Ryan Buck
You were in it, change into a pageant outfit and take the stage minutes later. That’s it. 1130. Yeah. I haven’t eaten lunch yet. Already been to like seven lunch events, 1230. Pick up custom tablecloths for the next day. Princess Tee at Joann Fabrics Craft Store 1:00 Return to the office, meet a FedEx driver delivering Cole Swindell merchandise concert 139 Pick up a colleague and fellow Do you graduate change into a custom made cherry skirt for next event?

00;39;45;06 – 00;40;03;27
Ryan Buck
227 Arrive at the Horticultural Research Station for the Cherry Industry Programing Awards for ten head downtown Traverse City to connect with staff and volunteers before the concert. 6 p.m. Enjoy the REO Speedwagon concert Backstage for sponsors. Special Guest Yeah, that’s the day in your life in 2017. That’s Cherry Fest 2022. How does it compare?

00;40;03;29 – 00;40;20;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, similar except 2022. We had all of the special guests under the sun, so we had the governor, the lieutenant governor, the director of agriculture, you name it. And we had some VIP that had decided to come here, which was an amazing, amazing experience. But we didn’t always know they were coming in till the morning of or the day before.

00;40;21;01 – 00;40;34;25
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And so it was a constant trying to figure out what events I could go to and then where I needed to be to greet them. So it’s sort of a little more up in the air. And then in 2021, we had President Biden who visited us and I was like, What is going on?

00;40;34;27 – 00;40;38;11
Ryan Buck
So you had something to do with that? Yes, in an official capacity that.

00;40;38;11 – 00;40;44;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Same year was the ride, the magic carpet. The decided to not stay where it was supposed to.

00;40;44;17 – 00;40;44;22
Mark Wilson
Yeah.

00;40;44;28 – 00;40;50;23
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
All right. I went on TMZ. So when TMZ calls you, you now have decided you’ve made it in life.

00;40;50;25 – 00;40;52;19
Ryan Buck
That is one way of looking at that.

00;40;52;21 – 00;40;55;26
Mark Wilson
The first the president, you know, the governor, the president.

00;40;55;28 – 00;41;15;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I TMZ my first thought when that particular piece of life happened was, is everyone okay? Oh, and thankfully, everything had already before I got the news because it was on around 1230, everything had been handled and I was now on a conference call with three people from Arnold’s Amusements telling me the ride’s already been removed, everyone’s fine. Here’s what’s happened.

00;41;15;07 – 00;41;29;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
They’ve called their insurance. They’re getting the ride inspected. And I was going, okay. And they said, But by the way, it was videotaped. And I was like, excuse me. So I, of course, call my media people on my staff, Susan and Bayley. And I was like, So we’re going to hear about this first thing in the morning. This is what’s happened.

00;41;29;12 – 00;41;41;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
They’re all sleeping too. And I was like, This is what’s happened. Everyone’s fine. There were no injuries. Apparently someone handed out deep fried Oreos and they’re all good to go. But oh yeah, they got consultants and ride tickets for the next day. So all reports are.

00;41;41;16 – 00;41;42;15
Ryan Buck
You know, handling the.

00;41;42;16 – 00;41;51;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And they told us what happened and they told us the ride operator and everything that happened. So I knew the play by play before I saw the video. And then yes Htmg and everyone else under the sun.

00;41;51;11 – 00;41;54;09
Mark Wilson
Ticktock just shared. So it was.

00;41;54;12 – 00;41;55;06
Ryan Buck
Tick tock.

00;41;55;06 – 00;41;55;25
Mark Wilson
Tick tock.

00;41;55;26 – 00;42;01;14
Ryan Buck
You know, it’s part of life. It’s it’s bits. But you know what? I almost forgot it happened, to be honest.

00;42;01;16 – 00;42;02;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I heard about it yesterday, so it’s.

00;42;02;25 – 00;42;03;13
Mark Wilson
Brought it back.

00;42;03;13 – 00;42;23;26
Ryan Buck
Up. Yes. It’s not like the hurricane that we got in 2000, whatever that time frame was. But you look at some of the big things that you have to do. Reducing set up time. Yeah. Incorporating with the city. What do you look for in a partner? What do you look for in people who you are actively wanting to work with?

00;42;23;26 – 00;42;28;10
Ryan Buck
What are the optimal traits in a partner and what do you want to see moving forward.

00;42;28;12 – 00;42;56;13
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
In partner organizations and businesses, things like that? A lot of it is their dedication to the community. You’ll notice a lot of our sponsors and things are also very dedicated to the community and give back sort of groups. They sponsor a lot of things I think of like for Credit Union and Blue Cross Blue Shield and Priority Health and Charity, Land Electric, a lot of those guys are already doing a ton in our community too, so we look at a lot of those pieces and we look for what we can offer them as much as they can offer us because it’s a two way street.

00;42;56;16 – 00;43;22;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So if we’re looking to do that, we’re also looking to see how they want to be marketed back into the community, what they want to support and whether or not that’s a good fit and kind of how that works. When it comes to nonprofit partners, we are open to all. We have a website that has an amazing get involved tab and you can click on there to become a share group where we actually pay you nonprofit to do it, a volunteer team so you could be a for profit business or nonprofit wanting to get exposure out there about your group.

00;43;22;18 – 00;43;32;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah. And then we have just our regular old amazing Cherri volunteers, our ambassadors, as we call them, because they’re not just volunteers. They really ambassadors for our festival and our community out into the world.

00;43;32;23 – 00;43;54;01
Ryan Buck
It’s not just the Cherry Fest. It’s three other amazing events that connect people to families I love. I know it’s a bummer that I span the last couple of years. It hasn’t been super icy. But when, you know, I live in a particular area where you can see the route and you see families, you see little ones, and those are the images that stick with you.

00;43;54;01 – 00;44;14;01
Ryan Buck
Yeah. When you think about a child’s first concert, we’re musicians. That’s a big deal. And you’ve seen all of these firsts and all of these kind of big things. Is that enough to keep you inspired? And again, what are you looking for moving forward? Obviously, Festival Foundation being more prolific as it relates to what it is. What are your dreams right now?

00;44;14;01 – 00;44;22;04
Ryan Buck
Because I think you’ve earned it. You’ve earned the ability. You’ve been working for this organization since birth.

00;44;22;10 – 00;44;22;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah.

00;44;22;23 – 00;44;25;13
Ryan Buck
So just pie in the sky. What would you like to see happen?

00;44;25;20 – 00;44;45;13
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I think there’s a lot for the Festival foundation moving forward. We have just started to be able to take donations. So a monthly donor program, monthly grower program, you now can donate back to the foundation as little as $5 a month, and it’s automatically taken out of your checking your savings and put in the foundation. And you get to choose where it goes, where it goes into scholarships or permanent home.

00;44;45;13 – 00;45;04;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
For us, we rent space downtown, so are like everyone else. We do not have a permanent home, Right. That we’re not paying for. So that is something that’s a brick and mortar policy and then just the operating expenses. So people are looking to do that. That’s become a new avenue for us. Just in the last three years that we’ve kind of launched it because people said, how can we donate to you?

00;45;04;19 – 00;45;10;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And I was like, That’s a really good question. Sure. Because we were not set up for that. That is something that’s kind of foreign to us.

00;45;10;12 – 00;45;14;23
Ryan Buck
In the perception that, Oh, gosh, Sheriff, I can’t need anything. Well, look at how.

00;45;14;23 – 00;45;32;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Big. And we look at it and say, but we are able to provide things like the snow cone. The snow cone is free. So our snow cone race is for those probably ages two and a half or two that can ride a balance bike all the way up to eight, nine, ten are doing our snow cone at The Iceman Cometh and that is free.

00;45;32;11 – 00;45;47;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s completely free for those kids to enjoy this. And that is because of the generous donations of Ice Man riders, the Iceman Riders themselves like, Oh yeah, I’ll pony up some extra dollars, make sure kids can get on bikes because that’s future generations. It’s the same thing we see at the Cherry Festival with stuff like the air show.

00;45;47;21 – 00;46;06;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
The Pancake Breakfast is the high flying pancake breakfast. You actually have to catch your pancakes on a plate to eat them. So if you’ve never experienced this with Chris Cakes, they are. It’s the Guinness Book of World Records for the most pancakes thrown. I think it is. And you have to catch them. And so you hold your plate and they chuck them with their flipper off the girdles and you have to catch them.

00;46;06;27 – 00;46;29;11
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Proceeds from that benefit the aviation school and the aviation. In scholarships. We have been funding the Kevin Copeland Scholarship for about four years. Kevin Copeland was a great aviator and he was a great pilot and unfortunately we lost him in a motorcycle accident a few years ago and M.C. and his family started the Kevin Copeland Scholarship. And we are very proud to continue to donate that annually.

00;46;29;11 – 00;46;42;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We the Pancake Breakfast already existed, but we did something, which is what we really know how to do. Well, yeah, to say the word. We all just like pivot. We pivoted. Okay. It’s also in Lake Superior States. Banished word list. Pivot.

00;46;42;09 – 00;46;43;04
Ryan Buck
Oh, interesting.

00;46;43;05 – 00;46;43;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah.

00;46;43;22 – 00;46;44;03
Ryan Buck
Okay.

00;46;44;10 – 00;47;03;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So we’re supposedly, you know, not using as much, but we shifted gears, pivoted, however you want to term it, to moving that pancake breakfast to benefiting a cause. Yeah. And we’ve won awards for it before through international festival events, foundations for the fact that we moved something that was a revenue generator for us to being a revenue generator for something else.

00;47;03;26 – 00;47;25;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And now when you look at kids watching the air show, I love watching kids down in the open space when they are ready to see those planes fly and there is nothing that brings us more joy in the fact that it’s free. Yeah, every parent can take them down there. And these kids are sitting there with their toy planes and their ice cream cone and they’re just mesmerized.

00;47;25;22 – 00;47;31;12
Ryan Buck
And they could be staying at a hotel where they could meet a pilot. They could. And that’s a celebrity. That’s a moment.

00;47;31;12 – 00;47;47;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
They get to meet the pilots for free it open up and the parents take them out there. 10,000 people get to see on our Coast Guard hangar, which is phenomenal airspace. And Traverse City opens up to us and everyone else. Yeah. On the Friday before the air. Staggering, isn’t it? And you can go out there and see the planes and meet a Blue Angel pilot.

00;47;47;27 – 00;47;52;09
Ryan Buck
It’s like, you shouldn’t be here. Like, isn’t there national security to be worried about? But no, it’s.

00;47;52;10 – 00;48;17;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
12 years later. I’m still fangirling over meeting pilots. I walk out on the tarmac and I’m the girl from Dirty Dancing where I carried a watermelon my whole job because this is not us. The Air Show Committee and our air show directors are amazing people. Yes, I walk out with bottles of water. That’s literally my job. And I walk out with these guys who on the air show directors as the pilot is coming off the plane when they first arrive and land.

00;48;17;17 – 00;48;20;01
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
My only job, it’s the coolest thing I do all week.

00;48;20;01 – 00;48;21;22
Ryan Buck
That that’s got to be thrilling.

00;48;21;22 – 00;48;23;06
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s amazing. And I.

00;48;23;08 – 00;48;25;28
Ryan Buck
Was still using cool, even sweaty and everything every.

00;48;25;28 – 00;48;32;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Year. It’s cool and I’ve done it now six years and I still I tell the new air show director every year I’m like, Can I just please carry the water out there? It’s my favorite thing.

00;48;32;11 – 00;48;33;27
Mark Wilson
Oh, my gosh, Can I?

00;48;33;29 – 00;48;43;10
Ryan Buck
Because you have tons of time to do it. Will you indulge just as we close a couple of corny questions, some things that maybe I thought about.

00;48;43;10 – 00;48;45;06
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
The things you’re teaching to know. Well.

00;48;45;09 – 00;49;06;24
Ryan Buck
Not you, Not me, really. I maybe that you’re itching to share. Sure. And people would want to know. But a dream performer. You’ve gotten so close, but no cigar. So that really bums you out that you still think about. I don’t want to open all old wounds, but close to getting somebody. And it just hurts. And it could be any kind of performer.

00;49;06;26 – 00;49;08;24
Ryan Buck
And you don’t have to say details. I mean, my.

00;49;09;01 – 00;49;13;06
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Line for us for a long time was Nellie. And then we did it. And then we did it to.

00;49;13;06 – 00;49;15;18
Ryan Buck
My gosh, yeah, that’s a wonderful way to set.

00;49;15;19 – 00;49;22;04
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It. Is it was it was one of those things that we didn’t think we were going to do that. And we also didn’t know that Traverse City would love it as much as they.

00;49;22;04 – 00;49;23;19
Ryan Buck
Did nineties R&B, Hip Hop.

00;49;23;20 – 00;49;27;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Nellie was the biggest sale opening day for general admission ever.

00;49;27;19 – 00;49;28;03
Ryan Buck
I’m not sure.

00;49;28;03 – 00;49;34;04
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We were blown out of the water and then he came out on stage in our logo gear and I think all of us were just like, We can all die now.

00;49;34;06 – 00;49;35;20
Ryan Buck
That’s that, you know, that.

00;49;35;20 – 00;49;48;23
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Was a lot. So and he wanted it. He we didn’t put it back there for him. He arrived. He they talked backstage and said, well, we’d like to get t shirts, the Cherry Festival, and here are our sizes. And they came to me. They’re like, Can we do that? Are we charging him? And I was like, He’s Nellie.

00;49;48;27 – 00;50;03;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We are not charging him for shirts. Does he want ten or 20? I mean, go grab him out of the tent. It’s fine. Tell Mark and Steve later. It’s fine. Yeah. So that was a big one. Boys to man. And we also have them. Yeah. So that.

00;50;03;05 – 00;50;04;11
Ryan Buck
Was you. Wow.

00;50;04;17 – 00;50;05;20
Mark Wilson
That was just last year.

00;50;05;22 – 00;50;12;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And one of my personal favorites, which was super fine, was Humphrey, which was the a cappella band that opened for Dwight Yoakam last year.

00;50;12;15 – 00;50;13;02
Ryan Buck
Oh, yeah.

00;50;13;02 – 00;50;29;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah. So I’ve seen Home Free probably three or four or five times because my mother is a home fry. So home fry is what they call the fans of Home Free. And my mother, she’s going to hate me for this is over 75 and loves, loves, love these guys and they are in a home for yeah, home stuff.

00;50;29;12 – 00;50;43;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Self-designated. That is a phenomenal human and 75 hour I’m sorry I’m just it’s that whole just great to be wonderful when she hears this later she does listen and watch all of the things I’m on because she’s you’re young.

00;50;43;06 – 00;50;43;20
Ryan Buck
Yes.

00;50;43;26 – 00;50;44;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
She’s incredible.

00;50;44;15 – 00;50;45;19
Ryan Buck
I know they love serving.

00;50;45;20 – 00;50;47;13
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Our volunteers for 29 years, so.

00;50;47;13 – 00;50;48;15
Ryan Buck
She. Oh, my gosh.

00;50;48;15 – 00;51;08;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah. All day. Every day. She’s quite the person. Everyone calls her Mama Jan because she’s like mom to everyone. The home free was a big one. And I had sent this to our production company because I don’t actually choose the artists. So this is a fascinating piece. Worthy and Entertainment is our booking agent. And so I give them a budget and they say they call me Go so we can get this band for this amount that works the budget, right?

00;51;08;27 – 00;51;20;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Or this band or this band. Yeah. And sometimes our office geeks out like now. Yeah. The other day, you know, we were talking about Ludacris and I was like, I know.

00;51;20;25 – 00;51;23;04
Mark Wilson
You still have a massive voice mail.

00;51;23;07 – 00;51;28;28
Ryan Buck
Online. I can tell you why I’m about to have a heart attack right now. And just the idea of it and.

00;51;29;00 – 00;51;31;07
Mark Wilson
You don’t want to say.

00;51;31;09 – 00;51;40;26
Ryan Buck
I have a fierce love belief in the Fast and Furious films are the greatest movies of our generation. They generation. And I love him as a musician.

00;51;40;26 – 00;51;42;13
Mark Wilson
You want to pick them up, interfere or.

00;51;42;16 – 00;51;47;27
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So there is a whole. So this is what happens in our office. Some sort of discussion in space.

00;51;47;27 – 00;51;49;06
Ryan Buck
It was.

00;51;49;09 – 00;51;56;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And all of a sudden we’re all like, Oh my gosh, are we getting Ludacris? And then, you know, and it spiraled out, of course, and then it doesn’t happen. And everyone goes, Yeah.

00;51;56;28 – 00;51;58;00
Ryan Buck
But you’re having fun.

00;51;58;08 – 00;52;09;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We love it. We’ve we didn’t love it. We wouldn’t do it. And there are some days that they will announce a show and we go, Who is that? Because our service is 40 and younger. And so there are days when we all have to go.

00;52;09;28 – 00;52;16;24
Ryan Buck
Right? We’re Googling, and every once in a while you get somebody who is about to be somebody or something, Right, then.

00;52;16;26 – 00;52;21;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yes, we’ve done that. So we had Kane Brown before. There you go. Is as big as he is now.

00;52;21;29 – 00;52;22;20
Ryan Buck
Can I ask.

00;52;22;20 – 00;52;23;25
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You one more? And several.

00;52;23;25 – 00;52;25;19
Ryan Buck
You don’t have to incriminate anybody.

00;52;25;19 – 00;52;26;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah.

00;52;26;15 – 00;52;37;28
Ryan Buck
What’s the most ridiculous to hook up request A friend or family has ever had the audacity to. I mean, have you been shocked by somebody who’s like, Can you give me a hook? I mean, what’s the most common one you get asked?

00;52;38;00 – 00;52;39;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
A lot of them is marriage proposals.

00;52;39;23 – 00;52;40;05
Ryan Buck
Why?

00;52;40;05 – 00;52;43;17
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
A lot of people ask if they can propose to someone on the bass music stage.

00;52;43;24 – 00;52;46;18
Ryan Buck
Not what I was thinking. I thought you were going to with parking or some of.

00;52;46;18 – 00;53;01;10
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
These big one. Oh, people have been very angry. If we’ve canceled the fireworks due to weather and they’ve planned it for their wedding because people plan their weddings around this stuff. And if we had a weather issue and we can’t make the fireworks go, I’ve gotten some real angry people. Or my other one is, can you please cancel the Blue Angels?

00;53;01;10 – 00;53;06;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Because we scheduled our wedding at 2:00 at St Francis Church. And I was like, That’s can.

00;53;06;21 – 00;53;07;09
Mark Wilson
You please.

00;53;07;10 – 00;53;07;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Show.

00;53;07;23 – 00;53;10;15
Mark Wilson
Cancel? Yeah. Wow.

00;53;10;18 – 00;53;15;22
Ryan Buck
They didn’t ask you to maybe shift the schedule. Just go ahead and cancel that out.

00;53;15;22 – 00;53;24;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Can we not have the blue in 3:00? And I was like, No. And they’ve played every year at 3:00. So now those are not the people I know, but those are definitely people who.

00;53;24;21 – 00;53;28;07
Ryan Buck
Have you had anybody in your life for you? Like why? Who? You know what I mean?

00;53;28;11 – 00;53;39;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
We have someone in my life and honestly, in any staff life that really wants something, depending on what it is, usually it is a very humble ask, right? Do try to make things happen for those.

00;53;39;19 – 00;54;03;05
Mark Wilson
Like like, Hey, is there a chance that I can get on stage and propose is not? I mean, that’s kind of ballsy, you know, and I don’t fault them for that. But like, change this, like how many people come to that? What’s the number that that come down to the bay for that change. How privileged are you that you think you can make that phone call.

00;54;03;08 – 00;54;10;24
Ryan Buck
It’s passion and I would just go ahead and incorporate it too with you know people put too much into that wedding day sometimes. There I said it.

00;54;10;29 – 00;54;18;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I mean, I applaud the thought process to call us and say, can you move the Blue Angels? And I was like, No, well, no, sorry.

00;54;18;26 – 00;54;26;10
Mark Wilson
I guess if they’re not really, like you said, the thought process like, oh, it’s just as simple. Like, yeah, we can stall them 15 minutes.

00;54;26;11 – 00;54;36;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And that was kind of my thought process. I said, Well, I mean, you my bigger thought was, you’re going to have everyone leave that church at 330, 4:00 from gridlock to Where is your reception.

00;54;36;24 – 00;54;38;15
Ryan Buck
When you talked about logistics, you talk.

00;54;38;15 – 00;54;49;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Well, that’s that’s my my brain. It’s I was like, is it really wise that you are getting married at this church at this day? And by way, why didn’t the church tell you? I mean, that was part of my brain is like no one in the process has.

00;54;49;00 – 00;54;54;06
Mark Wilson
Said they were so excited that they found a place. They thought, well, there was a place open.

00;54;54;08 – 00;55;01;19
Ryan Buck
You don’t have to say, but I can say it potentially for you. You could also say, are you sure you should be going forward with what you’re doing? And that’s what I did, because.

00;55;01;22 – 00;55;12;08
Mark Wilson
I almost said that about the fireworks, which is like, Dude, if if there’s no fireworks, it ruined your wedding. You understand The marriage is the rest of your life, right? Like the fireworks. Yeah, that’s true.

00;55;12;10 – 00;55;32;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And we did tell them because I was like, well, not only are you worried about the planes flying over the church when your actual ceremony is happening, but I am concerned for your hundreds of guests that you were expecting to get to a reception hall on time, which is outside of town. Yeah. And as soon as this air show, it ends at four, you’re going to have bedlam throughout town for at least an hour and a half.

00;55;32;15 – 00;55;33;18
Ryan Buck
Well, your ear.

00;55;33;20 – 00;55;38;08
Mark Wilson
That’s a good question, Ryan. You’re you’re a wedding. You’re you’re an event planner.

00;55;38;08 – 00;56;03;07
Ryan Buck
Yeah. So lastly and maybe it’s a little sappy, but have you in the time that you’ve been doing what you’re doing, spotted the next cherry kid. Have you seen a little eight year old in the time that you’ve been working in? Are you looking for one? And is that something that have you spotted anybody who has that? And did you have you said that may be me?

00;56;03;08 – 00;56;28;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I, I think I have a few dozen of them. Wow. We have so many festival kids who’ve grown up through it. Their parents have been ambassadors or event directors or however it has unfolded that they have now gone on to college and now they’re applying for jobs or internships and they’re going into event management or recreation management. And we’re the ones writing, you know, recommendation letters for them and even our intern program.

00;56;28;16 – 00;56;51;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Now we have a bunch of interns in our office from CMU and more coming in May that we bring in to learn the trade. They’re blown away. Our interns don’t fetch coffee and make copies. They plan events, right? They are in every meeting. We are. They’re dealing with budgets. They’re ordering things online. They’re looking for the junior royalty polos and trying to order crowns for kids and are having the same moment.

00;56;51;14 – 00;57;05;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Everyone else says there’s no job too little, no job too big. It’s all the same in our office because the job is to get done. We have to grade the memory because that’s what we do. That’s all we look at. Going down a parade route, going everywhere. We see all these kids and those cherry kids are no different and mine is no different.

00;57;05;29 – 00;57;12;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
My son’s four and he walks around the open space like he owns the place, which is terrible.

00;57;12;10 – 00;57;13;09
Ryan Buck
You’re going to put him to work?

00;57;13;09 – 00;57;16;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, my gosh. Well, he’s you know, he’s starting. He started.

00;57;16;10 – 00;57;16;26
Ryan Buck
He is.

00;57;16;26 – 00;57;35;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
He knows. He knows better now. We’re working on that. But everyone knows him and everyone referred first him as many boss because he’s my guy. Yeah. So that is his little nickname. And he’ll tell people in his little red polo that, yeah, he’ll be. I’m a cheery kid and he has his all access pass on and on the back has a phone number of every single staff member.

00;57;35;22 – 00;57;49;15
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
So if anyone finds him like, yeah, call a number. He shouldn’t be alone. Now, but he walks around like he owns the place and he is a volunteer like the rest of them. He is helping my mom sell the potato chips and, you know, move the chairs.

00;57;49;16 – 00;57;51;14
Ryan Buck
Vibrant, Awesome mom, All.

00;57;51;14 – 00;57;51;26
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
The kids.

00;57;51;26 – 00;57;54;21
Ryan Buck
Who may be of an age or not.

00;57;54;24 – 00;58;17;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
It’s fun to see the junior ambassadors do it. It is fun to see those people now that were me 30 years ago. It’s fun to see the ten and 11 and 12 year olds getting into it. And we’re teaching things that I don’t think people realize. We’re teaching you how to run cash registers or teach you how to run square machines in our Pepsi tent and how to manage products and how to pay attention to.

00;58;17;19 – 00;58;36;07
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Okay, this trough of water is, well, we’re going to need to add cases. They’re paying. They’re learning how to do some heavy labor hauling bags. Ice is no joke. No, those are £20 each. I mean, they’re hustling to get those done. We’re teaching them those life skills. And a lot of people don’t realize that until they get down there.

00;58;36;07 – 00;58;50;12
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Those kids I’ve got some 12 and 15 year olds who can run a concession stand and can do can make change the old school way when our power goes down. And I am deeply impressed. Every time you go, they can count it down and know how to do it.

00;58;50;12 – 00;58;52;06
Ryan Buck
You may survive the apocalypse yet.

00;58;52;07 – 00;59;21;08
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I mean, those were things we get. There are some days I worry and then I see some of our kids who have grown up, but they’re trustworthy. They get it, they’re committed and they have 40 and 50 people rooting for them. You also have those families who are entrusting all of us with their kids. So I may have mom and dad working at one end of the open space, but they trust that these other adults at the other end run in the Pepsi tent are going to make sure their kids are fine and we all look out for them.

00;59;21;11 – 00;59;38;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I know every one of them. And I can honestly say I probably know most of our 2000 volunteers by face. I’d be like, You’re a volunteer. You’re a volunteer over 30 years. I know most of them, and I can pick them out and they all know me by name. And sadly, I don’t. But I do know that my face, I’ll be like, You’re a volunteer.

00;59;38;28 – 00;59;51;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
You’re a volunteer. And I can tell who they are. So they walk up to me in public. A lot of times I’m, you know, they always say hi to me and I always say hi to. I just I don’t always know the name, Right. But I can tell you where they were, in which area, because they all are repeats.

00;59;51;29 – 00;59;59;23
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Yeah, they have their events, they have their little home. And I be like, You work in our souvenir tent. They’re like, How did you know? I’d like to see you there every day. I do know them, and it’s.

00;59;59;23 – 01;00;30;01
Ryan Buck
Probably just as important to them as they are to you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, that’s part of their family. The threat. You know, you you are giving them stories to tell. My every year this person would volunteer at Cherry Fest, and if they didn’t, they were real grumpy. And Christmas that year for us you know if grandma didn’t get to do what she did or if mom or dad or anybody didn’t get to do what they did, it’s really and I hate to say it, but, you know, we try not to entrenched these in any time, but I cannot wait for nicer weather in summertime.

01;00;30;03 – 01;00;42;23
Ryan Buck
I can’t. Talking to you is infectious in the most positive way. And I can’t thank you enough for your time and your passion and what you do here, because I personally have amazing memories thanks to you.

01;00;42;25 – 01;00;43;20
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, well, thank you.

01;00;43;20 – 01;01;00;26
Ryan Buck
That’s so again, how can anybody support donate? You talking about it? The website is there to talk about what’s the best way to connect with you to most appropriate way when when your phone or unless you want to. But what’s the best way to connect?

01;01;00;29 – 01;01;16;16
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Of course. Well, Cherry Festival dot org is our best way to connect for anyone that has all of our information on there is staff you can, I think, click on our pictures and it goes to an email. We’re very open and transparent. We have our office up at 521 South Union Street. Stop on in. We always give cherries to those and stop in.

01;01;16;19 – 01;01;19;00
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh yeah, we’re very we love the coupon brand.

01;01;19;03 – 01;01;20;17
Ryan Buck
You’re on brand on brands.

01;01;20;19 – 01;01;33;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Jodi’s at our front desk. Just happy to greet everyone. We have a delightful staff that when people come in, we love to talk to them. We love to hear their stories about what’s going on. And then the Festival Foundation has its own website. Iceman Cometh has its own you know, you can you start.

01;01;34;00 – 01;01;44;04
Ryan Buck
The festival foundation course. Yeah, right. That’s an important one to get out there and we’ll make sure that that’s highlighted because if it’s a new mission, we want people to be aware of all the things that you’re doing.

01;01;44;05 – 01;01;53;02
Mark Wilson
One more question before she goes. Yeah, of course. What’s the evergreen clause on bragging rights for winning the cherry pie eating contest?

01;01;53;05 – 01;01;55;28
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, the cherry pie eating contest or the cherry Pit Spit.

01;01;56;05 – 01;02;00;11
Mark Wilson
The pie eating contest circa 1985.

01;02;00;13 – 01;02;03;22
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, How fast did you eat your slice of cherry pie?

01;02;03;25 – 01;02;07;05
Mark Wilson
I don’t know. I just know that I got the ribbon. Oh, gosh.

01;02;07;08 – 01;02;07;29
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Was that.

01;02;08;02 – 01;02;11;00
Mark Wilson
Do I still have to present the ribbon to have the bragging rights? I still have a ribbon.

01;02;11;04 – 01;02;17;02
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
I would keep the ribbon forever, for sure. It’s kind of like junior royalty if you were a prince or princess. And one of our elementary school.

01;02;17;07 – 01;02;18;11
Mark Wilson
Parents in the house right now.

01;02;18;12 – 01;02;23;24
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, okay. So there’s something that we used to do. If you still have his sash and crown, he should keep that forever, because that is.

01;02;23;24 – 01;02;25;13
Mark Wilson
A his mom probably has it hot.

01;02;25;13 – 01;02;26;09
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Commodity.

01;02;26;09 – 01;02;37;27
Mark Wilson
Wow. I also kept the float that we built. We? Oh, yes, it was. We did Towns of Michigan. Awesome, awesome towns of Michigan. And so we got Holland and I built this big red.

01;02;37;29 – 01;02;38;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And you kept it?

01;02;38;28 – 01;02;44;23
Mark Wilson
Well, it was like it was huge. And I worked at Britain at the time, and so we they printed the lighthouse from.

01;02;44;25 – 01;02;45;21
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
The mainland.

01;02;45;24 – 01;02;48;11
Mark Wilson
And it was like this, Holy cow. For a while, our.

01;02;48;11 – 01;03;02;14
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Junior royalty programs are amazing. And it’s it’s a deep Senate tradition. It’s 75 years old this year. Those cherry dresses on the princesses and all the sashes for the prince and princesses are handmade by Sue Judson, and she still does it. So all those little girls.

01;03;02;14 – 01;03;03;22
Mark Wilson
That’s a hot commodity.

01;03;03;22 – 01;03;06;19
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So those are that’s that is.

01;03;06;19 – 01;03;10;20
Mark Wilson
Well, he’s got a broken car right now. You’re saying he could sell it.

01;03;10;22 – 01;03;29;05
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
No, that is history right there. We usually do a few things in the future. We will do some stuff this summer for our Prince and Princess alumni. Oh, give some perks at our festival because we think they are super important and because they are forever more the prince and princess of that year. No one else can take their crown and title.

01;03;29;08 – 01;03;42;01
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
And now we’re starting to present college scholarships and things like that to those students because those kids that grew up in this, this is a big deal. They are the prince and princess of that elementary school that year. And no one can take that title from them.

01;03;42;03 – 01;03;56;19
Ryan Buck
This has been hugely fulfilling. Kat thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your pursuits. And to all of those who pursue along with you. Celebrating, promoting cherries, community involvement and our amazing and beautiful region. Thank you for talking with us.

01;03;56;19 – 01;03;57;18
Kat Paye – National Cherry Festival
Thank you for having me.

01;03;57;18 – 01;04;06;01
Ryan Buck
And to our listeners, thank you all for listening and thank you for pursuing the positive.

01;04;06;03 – 01;04;35;10
Mark Wilson
Hey, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us again on the Pursuit podcast, The Pursuit of the National Cherry Festival. I want to thank Kat Paye for coming in and sharing her lifelong history with the festival and her work with the Festival Foundation. Check out the National Cherry Festival at Cherry Festival dot org and come participate and also look for concerts and other events put on by the Cherry Festival Foundation at the Turtle Creek Stadium in Traverse City.

01;04;35;15 – 01;04;50;10
Mark Wilson
I’m always accepting any challenger for the cherry pie eating contest, but more importantly also accepting anybody that cares to come work with New Leonard Media on all things audio Video Podcast Related Check us out Newsletter dot com.