Vickie was born in Olympia, the first child of the fourth generation of her family to live in Thurston County. She attended Garfield Elementary, Jefferson and Washington middle schools, and graduated from Olympia High School in 1973. In her senior year she was the Olympia Bear—the first female to serve as the mascot. She is a graduate of Western Washington University with a major in psychology and a minor in education. She received her Master’s Degree in Creative Arts in Education from Leslie University.
Vickie was an educator for 30 years, having taught kindergarten through college, as well as staff development. The highlights of her career were teaching for the U.S. Department of Defense in what was then West Germany, teaching in three orphanages in Honduras, as well as the Griffin, Olympia, and North Thurston School Districts. She is retired and has six grandchildren who represent the 6th generation of Thurston County residents.
After retirement she worked as a volunteer for six months in the archives of the Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, Nebraska transferring items stored since 1947 from cardboard boxes into a new state-of- the-art archives. One of her hobbies is genealogy. She is fascinated by her ancestors role in the development of the United States and particularly Thurston County. Among her ancestors is a Tlingit Stikine Native American who married a man with the Hudson Bay Company. She looks forward to sharing her skills as a new board member for OHS&BHM.