A more formal introduction:

Sheridan Hendrix is an Ohio-based journalist, working most recently as The Columbus Dispatch's higher education reporter. Along with covering Ohio's universities and colleges, she also reports on issues affecting college students including housing insecurity, student debt and hazing. Sheridan also manages The Dispatch’s TikTok account, which she and her colleagues use to share their reporting with new audiences and introduce the newsroom to more folks.

Originally drawn to photojournalism, Sheridan attended the Ohio State University with full intentions of pursuing a photography degree. Instead, she found herself intrigued and challenged by learning how to write for news. Sheridan worked for Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern, as the John R. Oller Special Projects reporter her senior year. Her long-term narrative work focused on the recent uptick of student suicide rates, followed two students navigating cancer diagnoses and college, and mental health services for students.

Sheridan started interning with The Columbus Dispatch (her hometown newspaper) as a college senior and stuck around after graduation until she was hired to cover Ohio's rural and Appalachian counties. Beginning in 2019, she and her colleagues produced "Broken Pledge", a nine-part podcast documenting the life and death of Collin Wiant, an 18-year-old freshman at Ohio University, and Stone Foltz, a 20-year-old sophomore at Bowling Green State University, who both died as a result of fraternity hazing. Their reporting ultimately helped pass Collin’s Law: Ohio’s Anti-Hazing Act in 2021, which made Ohio the 11th U.S. state to make hazing a felony.

Sheridan is a member of the Education Writers Association and participated in EWA’s New to the Beat program in 2021. She is also a 2023-2024 Poynter-Koch fellow.

When she's not in the newsroom, she enjoys cooking, thrifting, watching "Jeopardy!" and “Survivor”, crocheting, rock climbing, dreaming up vacations to take with her husband named Dustin and taking walks with her pit bull-lab mix named Biscuit.

Jeff Pearlman once wrote that Sheridan has a “First-team All-American great journalism name” and she’s still not over it.

Follow along. Enjoy the process. And thanks always for reading!

Awards and recognitions

Best public service/social justice issues reporting

Ohio Society of Professional Journalists · 2022
First place for “Broken Pledge," a podcast series about fraternity hazing and the death of Ohio University freshman Collin Wiant.

Best minority reporting

Ohio Society of Professional Journalists · 2022
First place for "Descendants of Hope: The Legacy of Ohio's Underground Railroad,” an oral history project led by Sheridan Hendrix and Céilí Doyle, and which included photojournalist Joshua Bickel and producer Hana Khalyleh

Best Narrative Podcast

National Headliner Awards · 2022
Third place for “Broken Pledge," a podcast series about fraternity hazing and the death of Ohio University freshman Collin Wiant.

best digital project

Ohio Associated Press Media Editors · 2022
First place for "Descendants of Hope: The Legacy of Ohio's Underground Railroad,” an oral history project led by Sheridan Hendrix and Céilí Doyle, and which included photojournalist Joshua Bickel and producer Hana Khalyleh
Third place for "Broken Pledge”

Best social issues reporting

Ohio Society of Professional Journalists · 2021
First place for "Lifting Their Voices," a photo project by reported alongside photographer Joshua A. Bickel which told the stories of the people who participated in protests in Columbus after George Floyd's death.

Best Narrative Podcast

National Headliner Awards · 2020
Second place for “Broken Pledge”

Best College Feature Writing

Ohio Society of Professional Journalists · 2018
First place in Best College Feature Writing for a six-month investigative project about suicide rates on college campuses