“It was a total surprise! I had no idea,” she said. 

In 1981, Vicky joined the City of Knoxville as part of Systems 6, a department that supported other City departments with word processing and printing. At a time when most departments were using typewriters, those that had  large typing/printing and mailing jobs went to Systems 6 for assistance. 

In September 1989, Vicky took a position available for the Fire Chief’s Principal Secretary. 

“It was totally different,” she says. “The woman I replaced, Wanda, had replaced Mary Ann, who had been there forever.” Wanda was only in the role for a short time before taking a teaching position, and after less than an hour of training, Vicky was assisting the City of Knoxville’s Fire Chief. A few weeks later she tested for the Principal Secretary position, passed and was hired by then Chief Bruce Cureton.  

She’s assisted seven of them: Bruce Cureton, Gene Hamlin, Eddie Cureton, Charlie Hansard, Carlos Perez, Bob Key, and Stan Sharp. 

This time of year, Vicky is looking ahead to hiring the next class. She says a good firefighter  is “fearless to some degree--they do need to run into burning buildings, but they also need some technical and EMS skills, because it’s not all running into burning buildings.

“In addition, compassion, integrity and good people skills are necessary because they deal with a wide variety of people who are usually having one of their worst days. These are just a few qualities that I feel help make a great firefighter.”

The new firefighters call her Mrs. Dalton until they hear longtime firefighters call her Miss Vicky. Her institutional knowledge assists everyone--new chiefs, new hires, colleagues. She helps them all. 

“We put out fires in the office too,” she says.