Tammy Dickey. Tammy’s name is synonymous to shoes and her Mt. Vernon shoe store, Shoe Stop, but things weren’t always that way. 

Tammy grew up in Whitesville, Kentucky. She went to high school at Trinity High School and lived with her family (3 brothers and 2 sisters). Her family started a shoe business in Kentucky named Shoe Stop.

After high school, Tammy attended a vocational school and took cosmetology classes to learn how to cut hair. Her first real job was at a hair salon named Regis Hair Salon in Owensboro, Kentucky.

To get extra money for herself and her family that was getting started, Tammy started working at Shoe Carnival as well as cutting the hair of extended family members for money. 

Being a single mother and working 3 jobs can be tiresome, so Tammy found a job that paid better than all three jobs combined in Mt. Vernon, Illinois at General Tire (now known as Continental Tire) and worked there for 4 years. This is where she met Brian Dickey and had 2 children.

Now living in Wayne City, Tammy decided to open up her very own hair salon named Main Street Hair Salon. While Tammy was working her hair salon, her brother who worked at Rend Lake College bought out an outlet mall (previously named Jent Factory Outlet). The mall had a shoe store that was going out of business, so the Shively family attempted to expand their family shoe store from Kentucky to Illinois.

After some time, Shoe Stop opened on September 13, 2002. Tammy’s brother repeatedly tried getting her to work there, but she kept refusing, saying, “I already have a full time job in the salon so there’s no point to get another.”

She joined the store in October of 2002 as a part time assistant, because she wasn’t ready to give up her salon. However, after some convincing, Tammy closed the salon in June of 2003 and took the job as general manager at Shoe Stop and has been there ever since.