Rooted in Tahlequah: UC Nursing alumnae expand women's health care in rural Oklahoma

Brandy Ponder, APRN, WHNP-BC

For Ponder, the path to Tahlequah began around Tulsa and Owasso. She earned her associate degree in nursing in 2012, worked in labor and delivery while completing her bachelor's degree and continued at the bedside before graduating from UC's Women's Health Nurse Practitioner program in 2019.

She began her nurse practitioner career at the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic before moving to the Cherokee Nation's outpatient health center in Tahlequah, the tribe's main hub for patient care.

Today, Ponder makes the roughly hour-and-a-half drive each way from her home in Owasso four days a week. It's a significant commitment, but for Ponder, caring for patients in the community is worth the drive. Her work also gave her an opportunity to invest in the next generation, as she has precepted students from multiple nursing programs and considers mentorship one of the most rewarding parts of her career.

"I learn a lot from the students, get different perspectives on things," she says. "I just love doing it."

One of those students was Reese.

Reese's connection to Tahlequah runs even deeper. She lived there until she was seven and eventually returned as an adult, building nearly her entire nursing career in the community.

Leonda Reese, MSN, APRN, WHNP-BC

She began as an LPN in 2010 and joined the Cherokee Nation's Tahlequah women's clinic in 2016. She spent seven years there, including while completing an LPN-to-RN bridge program.

Then came the next step: through word of mouth, Reese learned about UC's Women's Health Nurse Practitioner program. She enrolled in 2024 while continuing to work full time and raise three active boys.

Making graduate education work required commitment, but her employer helped make the path possible.

"Cherokee Nation helped me make it possible," Reese says. Staff working four 10-hour days receive a fifth day off, which she used for clinical hours. She also had four hours of paid education leave each week and worked coursework into her schedule.

The investment paid off. With her UC degree, Reese could build on years of experience caring for women in her community and step into an expanded role as a women's health nurse practitioner. That expertise is particularly valuable in rural communities, where keeping care close to home can make a meaningful difference for patients.

Ponder sees patients with high-risk pregnancies, diabetes and hypertension, while Reese emphasizes the importance of affordable care that patients can access without traveling to larger cities such as Tulsa or Oklahoma City.

"It's a rural community, so it's small," Reese says. "It's not a big city like Tulsa and Oklahoma City, where they have a lot of those resources."

Tahlequah's health care infrastructure reflects both the challenges and the strength of the community. Cherokee Nation's W.W. Hastings Hospital and Northeastern Health System serve different patient populations, but their proximity allows the two hospitals to support the community when one hospital's obstetrics unit reaches capacity. For patients, that local network can mean another option close to home rather than a longer trip for care.

Leonda Reese at her graduation

For Reese, expanding access now means taking her UC education into a new setting. Her new employer, NEO Health, operates about 19 facilities and pharmacies across a four-county rural area, where smaller clinics serve communities with fewer providers. Her work will allow her to bring women's health expertise to even more patients across northeastern Oklahoma.

Ponder is also looking ahead. She is preparing to launch a telehealth practice of her own, creating another avenue for patients to access women's health care without having to make the trip to a larger community.

For both women, the value of becoming a women's health nurse practitioner goes beyond adding another credential to their names. It gives them more ways to serve the communities they know best.

"I think a lot of patients prefer nurse practitioners as providers because we've been nurses, we've been there, and we listen," Reese says.

That connection is at the heart of their work: nurses who grew up in, returned to or built their careers in northeastern Oklahoma, gaining advanced expertise and bringing it back to the communities that shaped them.

And the impact does not stop with one provider.

Ponder's experience led her to mentor Reese. Reese is now carrying that education into a new rural health network. And the students who follow them will have more examples of what is possible when nurses combine advanced education with a commitment to their communities.

In Tahlequah, the path from nurse to advanced practice provider is also becoming a path to greater access, one UC-educated nurse at a time.