Katy Holmer was raised in two different houses in the Rountree neighborhood.

After graduating from Missouri State University with a B.S. in WIldlife Conservation and Management, she worked for two years with the USGS working with prairies in National Park Service sites throughout the MIdwest, She left Springfield in 1998 for the University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue a Master's in Landscape Architecture with an emphasis in Cultural Resource Preservation and Landscape History. Her thesis was a cultural landscape report for the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. After she completed her thesis, she worked as a historic preservation consultant for Mead & Hunt. After three years she returned to Missouri to work for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.  Most recently, she was the site administrator for Deutschheim State Historic Site in Hermann.  In 2022, she finally returned to her hometown to work as a Deputy Regional Director for Missouri State Parks, buying a 1927 Tudor Revival Home in the University Heights Neighborhood.