About the Author
Penny Cockerell is an award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of military service. She began her career with The Oklahoman in 1992 as an intern and was hired after graduating from college with a B.A. in journalism. Among her assignments during her career at the newspaper was covering the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing, then known as the worst domestic bombing in U.S. history. She also covered the 1997 trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in Denver and McVeigh’s 2001 execution in Terre Haute, Ind. Her awards include the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for spot news coverage of the bombing; four regional Katie Awards by the Dallas Press Club; a Byliners Award from Women in Communications Inc.; and several Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalist honors, among others. She was a Dart Foundation fellow for reporters who cover trauma in 2000; a Knight Foundation Newspapers-in-Residence fellow to Michigan State University in 1999; and a William Randolph Hearst fellow to the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. She has been a public affairs officer with the United States Naval Reserve and served 18 years. She is married to Perry Cockerell and has three stepchildren.
