Vicki Davis’s Journey From Farm Girl To Animal Advocate

Everyone has a story and this is the story of longtime Tri-County Humane Society Executive Director Vicki Davis.  Davis grew up east of St. Cloud on a farm between St. Cloud and Clear Lake.  Her family's home was next door to her grandparents farm site and she recalls spending a lot of time with her grandparents and the animals on their farm.

The beginning

Vicki grew up with 1 brother and 1 sister.  Her mother worked at the St. Cloud reformatory and her father worked at Eye-Kraft.  Davis recalls having a great childhood with horses, cats and a dog on their property and plenty of farm animals at her grandparents home.  She's always had a love of animals recalling starting with chores with her grandfather when she was as young as 5.

School Began for Vicki

Vicki went to Elementary School at Lincoln Elementary in St. Cloud, moved on to South Junior High before graduating from Tech High School.  Davis was very interested and involved in music in school.  She played the French horn in the band and orchestra and sang in the choir.

Dayton's

Davis started working at Dayton's Department Store in Crossroads Mall in 1976 while a senior in high school.  She transitioned from part-time to full-time and became a manager at Dayton's.  Davis recalls spending a lot of time working and she started to feel burned out.  After 8 years at Dayton's it was time for change for Vicki.

Starting at the Humane Society

After leaving Dayton's Davis choose to not work for awhile to figure out what her next move would be.  After running out of money Vicki saw the opening to be the Manager at the Tri-County Humane Society.  She applied and was hired in December of 1984.  The location of the Humane Society was in a small building near where the Gopher Bargain Center is now.  Davis says the job didn't pay much but she was interested in the challenge.  When she started at the non-profit it had a $40,000 budget and just 4 employees.

Davis' Goal

Davis' top goal at the Humane Society was to cut down on the frequency of euthanasia.  She says it was awful to have to put down as many animals that they did because they just didn't have room for them and the adoption interest wasn't high enough.  Davis knew they had to increase their size and a new building was necessary.  She credits the great people on the Humane Society board for their assistance and vision.

New Building

In 1989 the Humane Society secured the funding, bought the land on Franklin Avenue, near Highway 10, and broke ground.  Davis says to secure the funding they did a radiothon with WJON, and board members worked their connections. She credits the individual work of Tom Ritsche to help make it happen.

Growing the Humane Society

Davis says, once in the new building, interest in adopting dogs and cats increased.  She says with more space and more traffic, the amount of euthanasia went down.  Davis recalls having a room for exotic animals.  She says they had snakes, pigs and various others.  The Humane Society stayed in that building from 1989 - 2020.

Outgrowing Facility

Davis recalls outgrowing their first facility on Franklin Avenue.  She says they had 16 staff members.  She says to secure funding for the current Tri-County Humane Society building, lots of people worked hard to make it happen.  Davis recalls Dorothy Gorecki's $1 Million donation that put them over the top.  The new Tri-County Humane Society is twice the size of the previous one.  Davis says euthanasia is now very uncommon at the Tri-County Humane Society.

Retirement

The Humane Society, when Davis left, had a $1.7 Million budget.  Davis says she feels proud for the growth she was apart of in regards to the Tri-County Humane Society.  Vicki now lives on the same farm site her grandparents lived on east of St. Cloud.  She has 1 dog and 2 cats and is enjoying retirement.  Vicki has also become a regular on WJON's Stump the Panel program.

If you'd like to listen to my 4-part conversation with Vicki Davis, click below.