A fulfilling 29 and a half years of looking after the Geraldton region has come to a close for retiring Summit Fertilizers' customer service officer Michele George.
She has slowly watched the farming industry transition over the past three decades, as farms slowly expanded in size and changed their input needs.
Summit Fertilizers celebrated the massive milestone at the McIntosh & Son Mingenew Midwest Expo, where farmers from all across the region came to recognise Ms George.
She was presented with a cake iced in the iconic Summit Fertilizers blue, along with a rose bush.
Anyone who visited the Geraldton Summit Fertilizers branch would have noticed the number of rose bushes out the front, which Ms George helped look after.
She was a little teary-eyed from the amount of farmers who attended and the speeches, which the team had managed to keep as a surprise.
It was evident by the turnout that Ms George's friendly and personable nature had had an impact on the local farming community.
"You talk to people and you know what's going on in their lives and I really valued that," Ms George said.
"If they are having a hard time, you always give a big smile and cheer them up before you get them on their way."
Ms George said the main reason she stayed at Summit Fertilizers for so long was she felt like she was a part of the Summit family and the farming community.
"I loved the interaction with customers, and the company was like a family company," she said.
Ms George has thoroughly enjoyed helping generations of farmers and watching farms flourish through succession.
She has provided service to farmer's sons and grandchildren, and has helped the new generation of farming children with their fertiliser orders.
"It's been my privilege and honour to serve so many wonderful people, and I will miss that camaraderie that we share with each other," Ms George said.
"I love all the customers and I am very grateful."
Ms George's next adventure was to go prospecting in rural Western Australia and try to find a nugget of gold.
She planned to follow the weather, and "whatever felt right" to hopefully find her nugget - from Mount Magnet to Meekatharra.
It's been a dream of Ms George's for a while, and while her husband had found a nugget, she still called herself a "gold virgin".
She also hoped to travel to Tasmania so she could see their fertile dirt, which was completely different from the Geraldton soil she was used to.
"They've got good dirt over there, it would be nice just to have a look," Ms George said.
