Two women in agriculture were honored by Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism agency, during a recent awards ceremony.

Emily Iverson, farm manager for Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm near Woodburn, Ore., was named an Oregon Tourism Rising Star for the Willamette Valley.

Remy Drabkin, founder and winemaker for Remy Wines near Dayton, Ore., received the Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion Award.

Iverson and Drabkin received two of the 15 Oregon Travel & Tourism Industry Achievement Awards announced at the Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Portland on April 14.

Flowers and agritourism

Iverson is a third-generation farmer in charge of agritourism efforts and the wine side of her family farm.

The farm’s Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival is held from late March to late April and draws more than 125,000 paid customers every year.

The event creates huge ripples of economic impact throughout the area as attendees visit local shops, restaurants and gas stations.

Iverson said the festival is the primary reason why her family farm survived.

She encouraged other farmers to try to diversify with agritourism but cautioned there would be setbacks.

“We’re not an overnight success. It took a lot of failures to get where we’re at today,” Iverson said.

While farms must sell the visitor experience, safety is the top priority with agritourism.

The Oregon Tourism Rising Star Awards are presented to people who are new to the tourism industry.

While Iverson has worked full-time for a short time at the farm, she has been the voice of the business since she was a high school sophomore, posting online and sending out media releases.

Her family requires its children to graduate college and work two years off the farm to bring back new ideas.

After graduating from Oregon State University, Iverson worked for a local hop and grape grower, then traveled extensively working for farms, including in Australia and Canada.

She rejoined Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in January 2023, helping the ag operation develop an online ticketing system, capacity limits and a pricing structure for its tulip festival.

Iverson also started Summer Flowers, a new event.

A welcoming destination

Drabkin was honored for her efforts to foster inclusivity and support for the LGBTQ+ community in Oregon’s wine industry.

She created a welcoming space with her winery, which opened in 2006, co-founded the Wine Country Pride organization in 2020 and launched the world’s first Queer Wine Fest in 2022.

“My focus was never in creating a tourist destination. My focus was on supporting my industry and the people who work in it,” Drabkin said.

Farming is a diverse industry, whether that’s growing grapes or other crops, she said. The LGBTQ+ community works throughout agriculture and is represented through a wide range of ethnicities, income levels, political parties and other backgrounds.

Providing a comfortable environment for workers impacted the message that Oregon sent out to the world, Drabkin said.

“That has a massive impact on tourism. People want to travel to spaces where they feel safe,” she said.

Drabkin, who was mayor of McMinnville and a city council member, said she also thinks in terms of diversity and inclusion with her 30-acre parcel.

She has an 8-acre vineyard, as well as orchard and garden plots, but most of her property is riparian forestland, which brings a lot of biodiversity.

Drabkin tries to look holistically at the ecosystem on her acreage and her long-range plan is to protect ancient oak trees by removing invasive species.