Long-term enterprise
Paper mill's emissions go unregulated, exceed their permit (2018)
  • Found that the release of hydrogen sulfide by a Georgia-Pacific paper mill in Crossett went unchecked and unregulated for decades, all while people who live nearby had been blaming the toxic gas for their breathing troubles
  • Learned that state environmental regulators didn't know the mill routinely exceeded the levels of hydrogen sulfide outlined in its permit
  • Months later, the EPA ordered the company to pay millions for upgrades, including to reduce hydrogen sulfide emissions
  • Took photos and made interactive maps of air monitoring
  • I asked sharp reporter Eric Besson to help me on the document-intensive project.
  • (The headline for the first story was corrected online but is sadly incorrect in the print version linked to here, which is the most readable printout.)

High cost, little consistency in tracking Arkansas teacher absences (2019)
  • Found numerous inconsistencies in how local school districts track teacher absences and numerous inconsistencies in how they report those absences to the federal government
  • Our inquiries prompted state education officials to announce they would be starting their own uniform teacher absences data collection
  • Our sidebar on the Little Rock School District found that the district's own claims of improved attendance at one school were based on faulty data analysis
  • Online presentation included an embedded chart of substitute costs and an embedded search tool of first-semester teacher absences at Little Rock schools
  • Here's a more detailed explanation of how the project came together.

53% of levees Corps-listed as deficient (2017)
  • Found that most of Arkansas' inspected levees weren't meeting standards, that some had breached or experienced other problems and nearly half had inactive levee districts
  • Learned that despite a 2009 legislative audit report recommending more state oversight of levees, lawmakers never acted on it. Since then, problem levees have sometimes been fixed through federal or state taxpayer dollars, rather than by levee districts.
  • FOIA'd all of the inspection reports for unacceptable levees and tracked reasons for deficiencies
  • Found that required Corps and FEMA efforts to better oversee levees since Hurricane Katrina were unfunded (sidebar)
  • A follow up in June 2019, during historic Arkansas River flooding, after which numerous levees that sustained damaged won't be eligible for federal funds because of years of neglect and poor conditions. And an interactive map of levee conditions along the river.
  • Here's a more detailed explanation of how the project came together.

Short-term watchdog
(State's levees hold up, but fragility laid bare, plus interactive map of levee conditions)

Shift to remote lost some students in state (2020)
  • Requested attendance data from this spring and fall in Arkansas' large traditional public and public charter school districts and found high absences, when accurately reported, and that most districts hadn't tracked attendance at all during the spring
  • I wrote the top 2/3 of the story, while another reporter wrote the final 1/3
  • My second story for the newspaper's grant-funded Covid Classroom series on K-12 education this fall

Dilemma, Doubts: Parents agonize over difficult choices - their families' health or kids' education (2020)
  • Talked to parents, schools and teachers about their plans for this fall
  • Reviewed numerous school district plans and survey data to get a picture of what school could look like this fall
  • My first story for the newspaper's grant-funded Covid Classroom series on K-12 education this fall

Wastewater permits expire, but not flow (2018)
  • Collected data and searched public records related to dozens of wastewater discharge permits to create my own database
  • Found that more than 40 wastewater discharge permits have expired as long ago as 2008, but permittees have been allowed to continue operating under indefinite holds placed on them by regulators. Those holds prevent changes that are subject to stricter regulations and public input.
  • State environmental regulators did not grant me an interview. (Unfortunately, a reference to this was edited out of the story.)

Residents near 1 lake warned of problems with dam; not uncommon in state (2018)
  • Researched dam regulations in Arkansas and elsewhere, examined decades of property records and to track the trail of dam ownership and property owner association notices to home buyers and visited neighborhoods near the dam
  • Discovered that Arkansas doesn't regulate dams like Lake Sandy, while most neighboring states would, preventing oversight of frequently problematic individual-owned and neighborhood-owned dams

After 42 years, state-waters plan unfinished (2017)
  • Through public records requests and interviews, I found that Arkansas remains one of only two states that hasn’t carried out the Clean Water Act provision that protects a state’s most important waters from degrading.
  • Spoke with national experts and nearby state regulators to learn about how the rule is implemented elsewhere and what that could mean for Arkansas

Waste district hires firm, skips contract (2019)
  • Discovered after examining the local recycling district's expenses for FY19 so far that more than $160,000 had gone to the advertising firm owned by a district contractor and former long-time co-worker of the district director. I asked for a contract and was told there wasn't one, not even for her contract work for the district. The director then said he would do a request for qualifications.

Founders call LR Film Festival a wrap after 9 years (2 stories, 2015)
  • Found through public documents searches that the IRS revoked the Little Rock Film Festival's 501c(3) status shortly before the founders announced its end
  • Learned through records requests that the festival had been evicted from its rental space at the public library after months of tension with library workers. (follow-up story in the link)

Ex-county attorney’s new-job pay irks JPs (2 stories, 2016)
  • Through tips and public records, I discovered the former county attorney had been hired by the assessor's office as an appraiser, made twice the amount of money approved and was not qualified
  • Found via emails and other documents that she had quit her job as county attorney over a dispute with the county judge, who then replaced her with a former campaign worker whose hiring was also suspect

JPs to consider way to pay back restricted funds (2016)
  • Through records and the county judge's own admission, I found that he was using money restricted by law for road and bridge projects instead on a social media specialist and an administrative assistant in his own office.
  • Showed they were not qualified for those positions and were performing other duties instead using documents of the workers’ official job descriptions, applications and emails.
  • After being asked about it, the judge got a JP to sponsor an ordinance that would allow for reimbursement to the Road and Bridge Department for the use of their employees.

Youth unit chief who resign had tax debts, faced pay seizure (2 stories, 2016)
  • Learned through a court records search that the abruptly resigning director of Arkansas Department of Human Service’s Division of Youth Services owed the state about $70,000 in back taxes, which his employer was notified of the week prior to his resignation.
  • I drove to every piece of property he owned in the metro area to track him down for an interview. I never found him.

Proposed treatment plant irks neighbors (story and sidebar, 2016)
  • Through public records and tips, I found that wastewater treatment "package" plants run by the operator who proposed another subdivision near Lake Conway had histories of effluent violations.
  • Learned that a state representative who operates such plants had sponsored a law the previous legislative session that eased financial assurance requirements for the plants to obtain permits. The requirements included emergency funds.


Data-heavy
(High cost, little consistency in tracking Arkansas teacher absences)

Uncounted ballots high in '16; 1 in 20 absentee votes disqualified, data for state shows (2020)
  • Wrote a script to analyze state and national data and found that Arkansas absentee ballots were rejected at five times the rate of absentee ballots nationally
  • Created an interactive map of rejections by county

​Money a big barrier in recovery; U.S. disaster, insurance funds drop in bucket for repairs (2020)
  • Scoured every federal database on money sent to Arkansas for the 2019 Arkansas River flood, wrote scripts analyzing the data and wrote about how the money was being used
  • ​Made an interactive table of FEMA grantees

College embrace younger learners; high schoolers now 12% of state's college students (2019)
  • Found that high school students comprise twice as big of a share of the state's public college students as they did 10 years ago
  • Found, using my own method of estimating based on redacted student totals of 1-10, that concurrent courses disproportionately enroll white students

Hog farm in watershed finds tolerance, disdain (2017)
  • Created a database of hog farm sizes and locations in the Buffalo National River's watershed using the paper permits
  • Created a database of compliance issues of hog farms across Arkansas and analyzed the data to track common problems
  • Traveled around the watershed of the first national river and listened to how locals felt about what had become a national issue, interviewing people who had never been vocal before.
  • In June 2019, the farmers took a buyout from Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who said publicly for the first time that he believed it never should have been built in the Buffalo National River's watershed

State, nation see population shifts (2018)
  • Analyzed county population changes statewide and created 5 interactive maps (well, 10, but we only published 5, because I was told 10 was too many) in two days.
  • Took a Census story and made it about more than which places continue to do well and which don't by interviewing experts about the implications of Arkansas' broader population shift patterns on political representation and voter issues.
  • (An unfortunate editing error caused the wrong person to be quoted at the bottom of this story)

​Colleges in state soar in 1 sector (2019)
  • Explored three datasets in R to find that Arkansas has unusually high number of community colleges and certificates awarded
  • Learned that the state doesn't keep track of certificate attainment in a way that allows it to know how well the state is doing meeting its post-secondary educational attainment goals

Rural-urban shift continuing in Arkansas, latest Census data show (2019)
  • At the same time I had a University of Arkansas Board of Trustees meeting to attend, I pulled together an embargoed Census data release and made a map on deadline in R -- a programming language in which I had never published a map before.


News Features
Students get front-porch lessons (2020)
  • Attended an outdoor class and wrote about the history of front porches and presidential campaigns that took place on them

Trauma doctor: 'I was dying' (2018)
  • I wanted to document how trauma care has improved in Arkansas', and the nation's, hospitals, and I found out the man who created Arkansas' trauma system had recently gone through it himself
  • I did some research and checked in on his progress every couples of months. Then, I wrote a story.

Once posh, now played out: '23 hotel gets no bids at auction (2012)
  • For an entire day, I bounced around from place to place downtown in downtown Stuttgart, Ark., speaking with residents about the historic but dilapidated Riceland Hotel
  • Searched Arkansas newspaper articles at the town's library
  • Put the hotel's plight in the context of other historic but rundown properties in Arkansas, places celebrities were once often seen

Survivors of twister 'moving on' (2015)
  • Knocked on doors and visited with some survivors of an EF-4 tornado that killed 16 people the year before.
  • I took the lead on this story, but I was really glad I worked with Jeannie Roberts, one of the first reporters on the ground covering the tornado when it happened.

As costs go down, solar power rises (2017)
  • With the drop in solar prices worldwide, I found some individuals and businesses, rather than utilities, who were taking advantage.

Junk thrown in with recycling (2015)
  • Put on a hardhat and a vest to survey central Arkansas' material recovery facility for recyclables, where workers routinely encounter garbage -- and swords -- mixed in with materials they already have to separate

Spot news
C&H Hog Farms takes state buyout (2019)
  • Years of conservationist pushback, which I covered for 5 of its 6 years, culminated in C&H Hog Farms taking a $6.2M buyout from Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who argued the farm never should have been built in the Buffalo National River's watershed in the first place

Farm-permits bill withdrawn for more study (2019)
  • The culmination of weeks of reporting on the 2019 Legislative session's hog farm bill. I tackled varying opinions and explored potential ramifications of a bill sponsors said was a routine clean up of a regulatory issue but was opposed vigorously by environmental groups and water utilities and even questioned by some conservative lawmakers.

Governor proposes giving counselors more student access (2019)
  • ​In a day, I put together a story about a proposal to require school counselors to spend more time with students and spoke with superintendents who weighed in on whether they thought that was even possible

Food with friends and strangers (2017)
  • Spent Thanksgiving at a North Little Rock tattoo parlor hosting a feast that's not just for the homeless -- it's for the lonely, too.

South LR creek hailed as place for canoeists (2017)
  • Canoed down Fourche Creek the day it became Arkansas’ first Urban Water Trail, alongside government officials and conservationists. We got stuck behind a fallen tree, which barricaded the creek, long considered too dirty, and dammed beer cans floating in the water.

2 power failures leave burst pipes, icy offices (2018)
  • A downtown power outage threw the day's business for a loop. I walked around asking people how they were handling it.​

Newsletters
I've been writing a newsletter on health, science and environmental issues since February 2019. I've discovered the key to getting clicks is to be conversational but keep the text brief. Here are some recent examples: