Feature Stories — East Oklahoma In-depth reporting, long-form storytelling, and profiles from across eastern Oklahoma. EastOklahoma.com goes beyond the headlines to explore the people, places, history, and issues shaping communities from Tulsa and Broken Arrow to Tahlequah, Muskogee, and the small towns in between.
Sallisaw
SALLISAW, Okla. — Situated along the Interstate 40 corridor where the Oklahoma prairie gives way to the Cookson Hills, Sequoyah County has long served as a vital eastern gateway to the state. But over the last decade, the county’s position has evolved from a transit stop into a major regional
Oklahoma City
On a muggy afternoon in Oklahoma City, the narrative of a hometown heroine was dismantled in the stark, unvarnished language of a state indictment. For nearly eight years, Jennifer Lynn Roberts was a fixture of regional feel-good local news segments. She was the founder and executive director of the
Crimes
Inside the multi-town fraud network that turned a routine retail courtesy into an automated cash machine. By EastOklahoma.com Staff If you have spent any time waiting in line at the customer service desk of a Walmart Supercenter on a Friday afternoon, you know the rhythm. It is the
Tulsa
Inside Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s blockbuster investigation into the state’s managed care rollout, foreign botnets, and an administration looking the other way. When an ordinary envelope from SoonerCare arrives in your mailbox, you expect a routine notice—a prescription update, a quarterly breakdown, or a reminder about an
Tulsa
A convicted arms dealer now controls a three-state apartment empire. But the court record that handed it to him points to a $33 million money trail, an unnamed umbrella company, and 46 people and entities pulled into the fight — none of which has been reported. The headlines wrote themselves.
Government Corruption
The state helped bust a $191 million cattle Ponzi scheme. Now it may be aiming the same weapon at families who just wanted beef. In 1967, a federal appeals court with jurisdiction over Oklahoma was asked to decide what a beaver is. Not biologically — legally. A company called Continental Marketing
Muskogee
In a packed council chamber on a warm June evening in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the city's political and community worlds collided. The agenda was short but explosive: a legal opinion questioning whether Deputy Mayor Derrick Reed could continue serving as both an elected city official and the longtime director
Pawhuska
In Osage County, Oklahoma, the path to public office is supposed to run through the voters. But a detailed timeline of documents, meeting minutes, internal communications, and public records reviewed by EastOklahoma.com raises serious questions about whether Shawna Myers — a Republican Party insider and current county employee — has been
Claremore
Claremore, Oklahoma, is the kind of place where neighborly disputes are supposed to stay small. A dispute over a property line, some loud music, or kids cutting across lawns. The sort of thing that might end with a terse conversation or a call to the local police, who then mediate
Crimes
He ran for sheriff on a promise to restore law and order to Coal County. Less than a year into office, Jason Smith stood accused of being the county's most prominent lawbreaker — drunk on duty, violent toward his own wife, sexually harassing female deputies, and allegedly aided in
Stillwell
A brazen act of arson in the heart of Cherokee Country leaves federal investigators chasing ghosts in one of Oklahoma's most volatile corners The smoke was spotted by a stranger passing by. It was May 19, 2026 — a Tuesday — when a passerby noticed something wrong at a house
Police Corruption
Tahlequah's Assistant Police Chief built a career on community trust and law-and-order events. Now surveillance footage puts him at the scene of a Memorial Day vandalism that destroyed a children's summer attraction — and the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office isn't done