Sami Weesies will be drawing from over a decade of experience in the horticultural world while serving as an ambassador for West Michigan asparagus alongside 2026 Asparagus Queen Shannon Beishuizen. As Asparagus Queen runner-up, the year ahead for Sami is no less jam-packed, and she’s well prepared to talk plants with the best of them.
Sami is eager to learn everything there is to learn about asparagus over the next year, already absorbing as much as she could during the Queen contenders’ tour of the MSU Extension Research Station, where they picked asparagus and even tried purple varietals for the first time (according to Sami, they’re actually quite sweet in comparison to their green brethren.)
After marrying into the Weesies family, the Twin Lake native has spent the last 10 years working at Up North Garden Center, most recently heading up their social media and marketing. “I think it definitely prepared me for this role,” Sami said of her decade being surrounded by plants 24/7, “and I’m definitely excited for what’s to come.”
The National Asparagus Festival (NAF) already had plenty to offer, with the Taste of Asparagus competition being a particular favorite, as she made off with several recipe cards for dishes such as asparagus hush-puppies, soup, and - the Queen’s Choice - sour cream and onion asparagus chip dip. Sami and Shannon’s mutual love for the chip dip seems to already be a good sign for their Asparagus Queen camaraderie, insofar as flavor palate is concerned.
Sami shared the Queens’ upcoming schedule, which includes the Country Dairy Ice Cream Social, White Lake’s Fourth of July celebration and Fremont's Gerber Baby Food Festival. The Gerber Festival is of particular interest to Sami, as it's the perfect opportunity to trade pins with other festival queens. That’s right, just like Disneyland or Comic Con, pin-trading between queens is a hot commodity.
“Our sashes end up full of everyone else’s pins,” Sami explained. In fact, she and Shannon already have Baby Food Festival pins, as the Gerber queens were quick to find them during the NAF weekend and asked to trade. “We went to go find [Queen Coordinator] Kendra [Larios-Mendez]…and we’re like, ‘We need pins. Do you have them?’” Sami recalled. "To which Kendra produced handfuls, replying, ‘Oh, I have a stockpile specifically for this reason.’"
While pin-trading at the NAF was certainly an unexpected highlight, as an educator at Hart Public Schools, perhaps the best gift Sami received was from her “little pirates” - a handmade gold, purple and green bracelet with a crown. There were even 10 of her 16 preschoolers in attendance at the Joan Glover Royale Parade to cheer on their teacher and take photos with her.
“That was super bittersweet because it was my first year teaching this year,” Sami said.
Even though the school year was finished, the bracelet she and her students made became her good luck charm throughout her interview and the following NAF festivities, a reminder of not only her success, but also of the next generation of asparagus enjoyers in Oceana County.
