Sheba R. Wheeler, 96BA, became a Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter before the age of 30, and she did so by demonstrating solid “shoe-leather” journalism, tenacity, and tremendous grace under pressure. Practically straight out of the UI’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, this Temple, Texas, native landed a staff reporter position at the Denver Post, a paper with a circulation of nearly half a million.  

[…] One of her most important assignments was covering the April 1999 Columbine High School shootings, for which the Denver Post’s staff collectively won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. As part of this coverage, Wheeler wrote about senior Rachel Scott, one of the first Columbine victims, and got to know Scott’s family and friends during the course of telling their very painful story.

University of Iowa President David Skorton and renowned journalist Sheba Wheeler speaks at the 2003 Catalyst Award Reception. Wheeler, 2000 UI Distinguished Alumna, was part of the Denver Post team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for spot news coverage of the shootings at Columbine High School.