Graycen Wheeler
Water ReporterGraycen Wheeler is a reporter covering water issues at KOSU. She joined KOSU in June 2022 as a corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative that places emerging journalists in newsrooms across the country.
Wheeler grew up in Norman and attended the University of Oklahoma, where she studied biochemistry. She started writing and podcasting about science news while she was a graduate researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. Wheeler realized that becoming a journalist would allow her to combine her love for her local community with the puzzle-solving penchant that had drawn her to science. So, after earning her doctorate in biochemistry, she completed a master’s in science journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
While in Santa Cruz, Wheeler wrote about science and technology for outlets including Science, Symmetry Magazine and Mongabay. She also covered local news, particularly housing and environmental issues, for the Monterey Herald, San Jose Mercury News and Santa Cruz Local.
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Guthrie residents will vote whether to keep an existing sales tax for municipal improvements over the next 15 years. Since voters first approved it in 2016, the Capital Improvement Projects sales tax has collected 3/4s of a penny on every dollar spent in the city.
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Nearly two years into a legal back-and-forth between the State of Oklahoma and Swadley’s Foggy Bottom Kitchen, the state says the barbecue chain owes millions of dollars in damages.
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A power company is looking to build a hydroelectric power plant on the Kiamichi River near Talihina, but federal regulators have nipped the project in the bud.
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If you spread out all of OKC’s vacant offices next to each other, they would cover about 75 football fields.
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A bill to streamline Oklahoma’s hunting and fishing licenses is headed to the governor’s desk after a multiyear journey through the legislature. The measure also hikes hunting license fees for the first time in two decades.
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Leaders from Oklahoma’s Five Tribes are asking the state legislature not to move forward with a bill that would shield some poultry farmers from lawsuits, even if they pollute streams, rivers or lakes.
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Yellow morels are prized for their rich, nutty taste — they sell for $20 a pound. These honeycomb-looking mushrooms usually spring up in forested areas starting in March or April. But this year, Oklahoma foragers started finding morel mushrooms in late February — about a month ahead of schedule.
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Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is at odds with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over new rules to reduce methane emissions. Drummond is leading a coalition of states in a lawsuit to stop what he calls “attacks on Oklahoma’s most vital industry.”
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Hugo Lake in Southeast Oklahoma was one of seven parks transferred from state control to the hands of cities or tribal nations in 2013. A decade later, the Oklahoma Senate has passed a bill that says it’s time to make Hugo Lake a state park once again.
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The Oklahoma Senate has passed a bill that would streamline and standardize the registration process for used cars.