For Issaquah native Robin Kelley, Salmon Days is about homecomings.

As a youth she couldn’t have left small town Issaquah quicker, but over a decade later the festival helped bring her back into the community.

She’s now dedicated 20 years of work to Salmon Days, most of which she’s served as its director.

Even before her return home, Salmon Days made its mark in her life.

The first time she encountered the festival was on her wedding day. She planned to be married at her childhood church, St. Michaels, in 1976.

The day of the wedding, the road to the chapel was blocked for the festival. So when the newlywed couple drove off, cans rattling behind the car, they moved through the thick of festival, joining the celebration with one of their own.

Since it was founded 42 years ago, it has grown from a small-town celebration, where neighbors would go to see each other, to one of the largest festivals on the Eastside.

Last year Salmon Days attracted 180,000 people over two days to a city of 30,000.

Organizers plan this year’s celebration, Oct. 1-2, to be of equal stature.

Most of those visitors are from the Eastside, and they come because they have a positive connection to the city, Kelley said.

The festival is no longer a town celebrating its community, its about a region celebrating Issaquah, Kelley said. “It’s really powerful to get to share it.”

Kelley, whose maiden name is Hailstone like the historic feed store, grew up in Issaquah when it had with a large Labor Day celebration.

When that event petered out, the chamber organized a celebration of the salmon’s return to the town’s hatchery, she said.

Then, too, visitors would go to Issaquah creek to view the salmon, she said, as she looked out her office window toward the creek. “You can’t do that in many places, but you can do that here.”

As the festival marks the salmon’s homecoming, it marks Kelley’s as well.

She knew Issaquah as a small town, and as soon as she could, she left.

At first it was to Bellevue and Seattle, but after marrying a Portland man, they decided to move to San Diego.

Five years into the adventure, the sprawling city left them too restless, they wanted community again. They found community in Washington, D.C., and enjoyed some of the best performing arts.

However, a vacation visit home reminded them of something they missed, Kelley said. “There was a familiar feel to (Issaquah), but it had changed and grown.”

While she had reconnected with her family, she didn’t have a community circle. So her sister encouraged her to volunteer at Salmon Days.

She has the free T-shirt she earned that weekend sewn into a quilt.

The move had given Kelley the chance to explore what she wanted to do next, and the festival’s art drew her in.

Once caught up in the high-pressure life of D.C. law offices and courtrooms, slowing down to work with a non-profit was appealing.

After about four years of office work, she was named director.

“The chamber is really blessed in Issaquah, because she is one the finest individuals you will ever meet,” said Pauline Middlehurst, the festival sponsorship and promotions manager.

Kelley has an intuition with the festival that’s hard to translate. When she sets the footprint, she can visualize how people will receive it, Middlehurst said.

For Kelley, the festival reconnected her to the community.

“I had to leave to come back and appreciate it,” she said, her office cluttered with salmon sculptures and memorabilia from the years.

She breathed deeply, a tear dropping down her cheek.

“It’s an amazing city with amazing people, and it’s an honor to be here.”