There’s a new face in Sumner’s downtown area.

Arla Holzschuh is the new executive director of the Sumner Downtown Association following the departure of Shelly Schlumpf.

Holzschuh has 20 years of downtown association experience and plans to use her expertise to continue Sumner’s traditions while bringing it into the future.

She started her downtown experience working at the Enumclaw Chamber of Commerce when its Main Street program was one year old. As part of her vision for Enumclaw, Holzschuh used grant money to decorate the town with banners and plant trees. Her zeal for the town’s beautification almost led to her being apprehended by police while she was sprucing up the trees by pruning them.

“They got a call saying someone’s vandalizing the trees,” she said.

In 1991 Holzschuh became Renton’s first downtown director and while the city is more populous than Enumclaw, she discovered it maintains a community atmosphere.

“My claim to fame is Renton. ” she said.

Of her work there, she is most thrilled with one bragging right in particular.

“The most exciting achievement was getting the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train.”

The family that owned the Spirit of Washington train, which ran in Yakima Valley, decided to bring it to this side of the state, so they approached the city and the downtown association.

“We worked with them to bring it into the station. The son of the owner of the train said, ‘Arla I’d like to use your phone. I’m going to call my dad and we’re going to take the train to Portland.’ So we had an immediate meeting with the mayor and the Spirit of Washington ended up on the tracks in downtown Renton.”

She then spent two years in Renton and was soon on to Port Angeles, but at a challenging time, because the Rayonier Mill shut down. Here she saw people pitch in to keep the town alive.

“Everybody was willing to do everything they could to keep downtown going,” she said.

In 2006 she semi-retired, but in 2008 was hired as a consultant to the Auburn Downtown Association. This was also a Main Street program and she worked part time as a consultant until May 2009.

There are 16 downtown director positions in the state.

“When you’re a Main Street director and that’s your background, it’s not very easy to find work.”

She’s met with Mayor Dave Enslow and Deputy Mayor Steve Allsop.

She uses a four-point approach to Main Street, which includes organization, promotion, design and economic restructuring.

“They all sort of intermingle, but you have to keep them balanced,” she said.

Downtown structures and their uses are vital to the development and promotion.

“Strengthen the building improvements, the maintenance and everything to keep what we have in the downtown. And then work to bring in new businesses to fill vacant spaces and work to bring in new buildings,” she said.

Holzschuh will continue the successful promotions already known in the downtown area.

“Sumner definitely has a reputation for great promotions and that will continue. I don’t want anybody to be concerned that the promotions are going away, because they aren’t,” she said.

Holzschuh is well aware of Sumner’s claim to fame as the Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World and wants to continue to build on this fame.

“Now there’s increased interest in starting to build an actual festival,” she said.

She envisions Sumner having a cook-off in which people bring their own rhubarb recipes.

“People are really starting to bite into this. So we’ll likely do something in the next few months as a mini-prelude while we work on doing a rhubarb festival,” she said.