PORTFOLIO OF WORK
May 11, 2023
To those who knew them, the five teenagers were just normal kids. They played sports, went to church and loved the outdoors, video games, art, shopping at the mall and spending time with their friends. Now, their names and what befell them have been shared across the world.
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"These were just beautiful, young lives with bright futures," said a local deacon, Marcus Whitworth Sr., who attended the same church as Brittany. "And tragedy comes, and maims."
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I wrote this story hoping to highlight the fact that these teenagers were all living normal lives before they were tragically taken. My colleagues and I spent days in Henryetta and days calling people to cover this tragedy from all angles.
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*Photo by Nathan Fish/The Oklahoman
April 5, 2023
Oklahoma City wants to spend $12.5 million over the next two years to significantly reduce the number of people living on the streets and in homeless encampments, taking a page from Houston's playbook.
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After successfully "decommissioning" two homeless encampments using outreach and available housing in the latter half of 2022, city leaders and service providers presented a plan to implement the framework as a transformation of the way the city manages homelessness. Under the "Key to Home" encampment rehousing initiative, the city hopes to reduce the number of unsheltered homeless people by 75% by 2025.
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*Photo by Chris Landsberger/The Oklahoman
Feb. 27, 2023
A saltwater disposal well in this northeast Oklahoma City neighborhood causes the neighbors to smell a gas odor on a nearly daily basis.
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While reporting this story, the owner of the well decided to make changes that would hopefully decrease the odor for the neighbors. This story is an example of the power and importance of local journalism.
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*Photo by Nathan Fish/The Oklahoman
Sept. 20, 2022
The City of Oklahoma annexed and rezoned a tract of land, the owner of which wants to develop a neighborhood much denser than the others in Deer Creek.
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I talked with residents and leaders in the Deer Creek community about how this made them feel blindsided and their concerns for how the neighborhood could impact the area.
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*Photo by Chris Landsberger/The Oklahoman
Nov. 25, 2021
Growing up in America, we were told in November about the "first Thanksgiving," and the friendship between English settlers of Massachusetts and the Wampanoag people. Today, we know this is a false narrative.
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I loved writing this story, exploring how some Oklahoma tribal members celebrate the holiday. It's a good reminder that we should be in a thankful attitude every day of the year, not just one Thursday in November.
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*photo by Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman
Mar. 2, 2021
Prompted by the racial justice reckoning across the nation and the subsequent reallocation of a portion of the Norman Police Department’s budget, I decided to investigate what racial disparities were present in the NPD’s data.
Starting in August 2020, I cleaned and analyzed NPD’s publicly available data, using RStudio and Google Sheets, on contacts, arrests, citations, arrests and use of force. I found stark disparities for Norman’s black community in comparison to their population, and interviewed residents of color, city officials, department members and national and local experts on what those disparities might mean and what can be done to make Norman policing more equitable.
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*photos and visualizations by Jana Hayes
Mar. 15, 2021
My first story published as a freelancer, I spent six weeks interviewing public defenders, district attorneys, researchers and other stakeholders in the criminal justice community to learn how the pandemic was impacting the court systems and the job of public defenders specifically.
I found that most courts in the country are experiencing severe backlogs, and many public defenders perceive there is a lack of empathy from prosecutors towards those they are putting in jail and at risk of contracting Covid-19. There are also concerns about the constitutional right to a speedy trial, with many states yet to return to conducting jury trials and some considering suspending speedy trial statutes for years to catch up on the backlog.
Aug. 21, 2020
Almost 20 years after the unanimous passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, experts debate whether the first-of-its-kind law is capable of ending sexual abuse in prisons, including juvenile detention facilities.
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This story, in which I was a lead writer in a reporting team of 4, explores why young people in detention are vulnerable to sexual abuse, the flaws in PREA, and what some advocates believe is the best way to prevent sexual abuse in juvenile detention facilities.
April 22, 2020
In a meeting of almost 900 other NFL agents, Kelli Masters stood out as one of the few women.
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It was her first NFL Scouting Combine as an agent, and as she was preparing to break into exciting but unfamiliar territory, Masters was approached by a successful male agent for some unsolicited advice: She didn’t belong there, because women never make it as agents.
Masters said she would prove him wrong.
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She did. Read her story to find out how.
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*Photo by Caitlyn Epes/OU Daily
Dec 8, 2019
Taylor Schackmann was 19 when she entered into a sexual relationship with her professor, academic advisor, and director that would damage her in ways she never could have anticipated. Years later—after nearly a decade of processing what had happened to her—she reported the relationship to OU's Title IX office, who found him in violation of multiple sexual misconduct policies. Read on for her story, and a discussion on consent in the #MeToo era.
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*Photo by Caitlyn Epes/OU Daily
Feb 28, 2020
2020 signified a great milestone in America's history: 100 years of suffrage for women. It was a long and hard fight, and an even longer one to ensure votes for women of color. This story highlights the history of suffrage in Oklahoma, and one woman who became a martyr for the cause 100 years ago. It also looks at what change is still needed to day to ensure equal voting rights for all.
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*photos by Jana Hayes
Jan 12, 2020
OU School of Drama professor and former director Tom Orr was placed on administrative leave at the beginning of the spring semester due to unspecified allegations. There has yet to have been anything said about when or if he will be returning, or what resulted of the investigation. But it's not the first time he's been accused, or investigated.
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Read here for my first story documenting sexual harassment allegations against him. Read here for the story I wrote through a records request, in which I detail emails between him and another former professor accused of sexual harassment, that shows he had 'no intentions of punishing' the professor for indiscretions (these two pieces brought me 2nd and 1st place, respectively, in the 2019 Oklahoma Press Association Awards in-depth reporting category).
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*Photo by Jordan Miller/OU Daily
Oct 3, 2019
Gisel Gutiérrez lay in a hospital bed with her computer resting against the crisp sheets, turning in homework within hours of giving birth to her son Leonardo.
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A junior at the University of Oklahoma, Gutiérrez had been told by one of her professors that she would not be able to make up assignments missed when she was giving birth. Gutiérrez accepted this and quickly had to divide her attention between her newborn son and her biology class.
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Here, I tell the stories of four women who have experienced getting pregnant and raising a child all while continuing their education.
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*Photo by Paxson Haws/The Oklahoman
July 17, 2019
Rebecca Ponkilla still remembers the last moment she saw her daughter.
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She hugged Ida Beard inside their El Reno home as her daughter’s friends waited for her outside. Beard, 29, walked to a friend's house just blocks away, but never returned home.
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A member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, Beard is one of many Native American women and girls across the country who have vanished without a trace.
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*Photo by Jim Beckel/The Oklahoman
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The missing and murdered indigenous women epidemic is one many are only just learning about. This story explores the grief of the families experiencing the loss of a loved one and what one Oklahoma lawmaker decided to do to help.