Who We Are.

The Okmulgee County Humane Society was originally founded in 1922, laying early groundwork for animal welfare in our community. While our path hasn’t been continuous, our mission remains the same: to give homeless animals the futures they deserve.

Today, OKCO Humane Society is a foster-based rescue on a mission to rewrite the future for homeless animals in Okmulgee County and beyond. We don’t have a shelter (yet), but our new Downtown Okmulgee Adoption Center is under construction and opening its doors in late 2025. Until then, it’s all heart, hustle, and foster homes.

Every cat and dog we save depends on a network of fosters, adopters, transport partners, donors, and volunteers who believe, like we do, that rescue is the future. Together, we’re pulling animals from overcrowded shelters, providing the care they need, and helping them find the love they deserve.

We can’t undo where these animals have been—but we can change where they’re going.

Our work also includes community-focused programs like low-cost spay/neuter and Neuterhood Watch, our Trap-Neuter-Return-Monitor (TNRM) efforts for outdoor cats, aimed at reducing the number of pets euthanized simply because there’s no space.

We're a small, scrappy, passionate nonprofit, and we won’t stop until no healthy, adoptable animal in Oklahoma is put down for lack of room.

OKCO Board and Staff

It takes a team to build a movement.
These are the folks guiding OKCO’s work—from animal care to community outreach to organizational leadership.
Destany Ferreira
Animal Intake Care Coordinator

Destany Ferreira serves as the Animal Intake Care Coordinator for the Okmulgee County Humane Society. With a heart for rescue and a deep love for animals, Destany plays a key role in welcoming animals into the program, ensuring they receive the care, safety, and fresh start they deserve. She also leads the planning and coordination of community events, adoption days, and volunteer initiatives that help connect animals with their forever families.

Destany’s passion for animal welfare shines through in every aspect of her work. Outside of the Humane Society, she enjoys spending time outdoors, hunting, fishing, and making memories with her family. She and her husband, Ernie, are proud parents to three wonderful children and several cherished pets.

A proud member of the Okmulgee community, Destany is committed to creating a compassionate, supportive environment for both animals and the people who love them. Her dedication and heart for service make her an invaluable part of the Okmulgee County Humane Society team.
Amanda Fike
Adoption Coordinator

Amanda Fike is a passionate animal advocate and adoption coordinator devoted to giving every dog and cat the life they deserve. With years of hands-on experience in animal rescue, she has helped countless frightened, abandoned, and neglected animals find safety, healing, and loving forever homes.

Before entering the rescue world, Amanda worked as a veterinary assistant, helping clients understand and provide the best care for their animals. Her work today blends clinical knowledge with deep compassion. As OKCO’s intake and adoption coordinator, she ensures each animal gets the right start—and the right match. She also fosters dogs and cats whenever she can, giving them a soft place to land during some of their hardest days.

Amanda and her husband have a blended family of six kids, three dogs, three cats, and a snake. She enjoys spending time with her family, going fishing, and taking her dogs on hikes.
Aimee Robinson
Board President

Aimee Robinson serves as Board President of OKCO Humane Society, combining a lifelong love for rescue animals with a professional background in animal safety marketing and public relations. Her passion for animal welfare began early but deepened while living in Milwaukee, where she was struck by the number of animals transported from overcrowded Southern shelters — especially in Oklahoma — to adoption centers in the North. Witnessing this need firsthand fueled her dedication to responsible pet ownership, reducing euthanasia rates, and creating lasting change in her home state.

After a career that took her to Milwaukee, Miami and Kansas City, Aimee returned to Oklahoma and began fostering and volunteering with OKCO Humane Society in 2019. Today, she proudly leads the board, working with a talented and dedicated team of board members, staff and volunteers to expand the organization's impact. She plays a key role in OKCO’s strategic direction, from adoption center coordination to marketing, media relations and long-term planning — all in a volunteer capacity. What she loves most is seeing happy endings for animals who deserve second chances.

Professionally, Aimee is a Senior Marketing Manager with a global animal safety and genomics corporation. She and her husband Drew share their home with three rescue dogs — Barley, Porter, and Scruffmeier — one hard-working mouser named Morty, and a barn full of retired Thoroughbred racehorses and rescued equines they retrain. Aimee is a graduate of Morris High School and studied journalism and public relations at Oklahoma State University.
Nicole Winters
Board Treasurer

Nicole Winters was born and raised in Miami, Oklahoma. A proud graduate of Miami High School, she went on to earn an Associate’s Degree from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (NEO) before transferring to Oklahoma State University, where she completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Family Relations and Child Development. She later earned her Master’s Degree from Northeastern State
University and continued her professional education at the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service.

Nicole and her husband, Jason Winters, have called Okmulgee home since March of 1997. Together, they have two children: Braden Winters, and Merrick Winters. Nicole spent 17 years teaching in public education as an early childhood teacher, shaping the lives of young learners before transitioning to funeral service. Today, she is a licensed funeral director and co-owner of McClendon-Winters Funeral Home, where she is honored to serve families with compassion and care.

Deeply committed to her community, Nicole has been actively involved in numerous local organizations. She was a nine-year member, of the Okmulgee Service League, serving in various executive board roles. She has also served on the Okmulgee Public Library Board, where she co-chaired a capital campaign, and has been a long-time supporter and board member of the Okmulgee County Spring Livestock Show. Nicole has served on the Okmulgee Chamber of Commerce Board and currently serves on the boards of the Okmulgee County Family Resource Center and OKCO, where she is the current Treasurer. It is an exciting time to serve on the OKCO Board as the organization begins the process of renovating and building a new facility to better serve both the fur babies and the residents of Okmulgee County.

A lifelong animal lover, Nicole and Jason share their home with three beloved dogs: Snowflake, Paisley Pearl, and Joe. They are also proud grandparents to two grand-dogs, Inu and Bella Mae. Nicole considers it a privilege to serve the Okmulgee community and values the many connections she has built through her professional work and civic involvement.
Carrie Hawkins
Executive Board Member / Board Operations Manager

Carrie has been dog-obsessed for as long as she can remember—from growing up with a yellow Lab, to negotiating for a “lap dog” in elementary school, to traveling cross-country in an RV with two adorable mutts who loved a good road trip. Her passion for animal rescue has been lifelong, reflected in adopting her own pets, snapping photos and running social media for local shelters, and consistently giving back to the cause. So when the opportunity came along to join the board at OKCO, it was a natural “yes.”

Today, Carrie and her husband Zach share their home in Tulsa with four (yes, four) pups rescued locally and have fostered even more. Professionally, Carrie leads an Experience Design & Research team at Cisco, where she’s spent more than a decade creating better, more human-centered customer experiences. At OKCO, she gets to bring it all together: her love of rescue, her background in tech and design, and her drive to make things better for people and pets alike. She’s proud to be part of the work that’s not only helping pets in need, but also building a stronger, more compassionate community around them.
Jennifer Livesay, DVM
Board Member

Dr. Livesay is an Oklahoma native and earned both her undergraduate and DVM degrees at Oklahoma State University, graduating with the latter in 2014. While in veterinary school she was the 2014 recipient of both the Robert G. and Karen F. Beach Scholarship (awarded for proficiency in small animal medicine/surgery with an emphasis on felines), and the Abbott Animal Health VECCS Award for Proficiency in Emergency and Critical Care. She has worked in veterinary hospitals since 2003 and has extensive experience in both general practice and emergency medicine. Her areas of interest include dentistry, soft tissue surgery, and emergency medicine.

Though Dr. Livesay originally planned to pursue a research path, her desire to make a more immediate difference in the lives of people and animals led her to pivot to clinical work. She cherishes the opportunity to save lives, both in the short run through emergency medical intervention or over a lifetime via top-notch preventive care.

In addition to being the owner of Dripping Springs Pet Hospital, Dr. Livesay is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Oklahoma Veterinary Medical Association, and a board member of the Okmulgee County Humane Society, with whom she works closely to support and promote animal welfare in our community. Her own pet family consists of two rabbits (Corbin and Dallas), two cats (Gwen and Meow), and four dogs (Spot, Mickey, Olive, and Ivy). At 21 years of age, Ivy is the undisputed matriarch of the family! When she’s not at the clinic or spending time with her fur babies, Dr. Livesay enjoys resin crafting and making jewelry.
Jill Brison Whitelock
Board Member

Jill Brison Whitelock has spent most of her life in Okmulgee County. She first learned to be active in the community through her involvement with Girl Scouts, from volunteering her time at local festivals to help them run smoothly for the attendees, to creating care packages for those without family in local nursing homes, and learning to always leave outdoor spaces cleaner then how she found them. Her love for animals came naturally by frequently visiting her grandparents farm almost every weekend, helping to work cattle, ride horses, and looking after the farm dogs and cats when they’d allow.

As an adult she’s continued to try and give back through involvement in service organizations like Oklahoma Home and Community Education (OHCE), where she’s earned the designation of Master Service Volunteer. She frequently helps out at the County Extension office when the staffs work takes them out of the office for extended periods as well as helping with county wide 4H camps to help the kids learn new skills that help them to be more well-rounded individuals.

For nearly the past decade she’s even been helping out at the yearly Okmulgee County Free Fair. From helping organize the open class Photography and Arts and Crafts entries, to working at the concession stand grill, and helping to answer questions for the public during the fair itself, she’s been involved in a lot of ways.

Through it all she’s never lost her love for animals and is excited for the new directions that OKCO (Okmulgee County) Humane Society is taking. Her current passion is TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release) to keep down the local stray dog and cat populations, while educating the public on the good that those stray populations can do for the community, when their numbers are kept in check. A prime example being keeping down the number of mice and rats that might try to invade local homes and business, which also helps minimize the spread of diseases those rodents might carry!
Becky Tillett
Board Member / OKCO Graphic Designer

Becky Tillett, originally from New Mexico, is an artist and graphic designer, wife, mom and business owner who, looking for a change and less hectic kind of life, moved from Denver, Colorado to Beggs, Oklahoma in 2020 along with her husband—Mike, their daughter—Mina, and their pets—Jean, Henry and Ripley. 

Becky has always been an animal lover, which she attributes to her grandmother, Geri Tillett. Geri served as president and board member of the Doña Ana County Humane Society for more than 20 years. She was also southern New Mexico's primary bird and wildlife rehabilitator, known affectionately to most in Las Cruces as "The Bird Lady." Becky spent much of her childhood watching her grandmother feeding and nursing injured birds and wildlife back to health before re-releasing them back into the wild. Pigeons, wolves, skunks, owls - there was never a dull moment at her grandparents' home, and she felt incredibly fortunate to be a part of something so special.

For years in the early aughts Becky worked for the Doña Ana County Humane Society herself, willing to get her hands dirty cleaning the kennels, to the more administrative, including handling in-office pet adoptions, assisting those in search of their missing pets at the shelter, and coordinating off-site pet adoption fairs.

Professionally, Becky holds an A.A.S. in Digital Graphics from New Mexico State University as well as a B.A.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Regis University in Denver. Currently, she and her husband Mike work as artists for their business—Strong and Hardy®, selling their work at art fairs, expos and markets all over the country.