By Frost McGahey
Investigative Journalist
In 2021 Siah Correa Hemphill, a first-term state senator, was appointed to the New Mexico State Senate’s influential Finance Committee. Her assignment to that committee marked an unusually swift placement of a freshman senator to such a high-profile committee. This committee allocates money, among other things, to the state’s universities.
At first Siah Hemphill worked well with Dr. Shepard considering her husband was employed as a photographer for Western New Mexico University.
According to multiple, independent sources, the fracture in their relationship occurred in March 2023 when Shepard asked for $5 million for the university from the Finance Committee. Of that amount, $500,000 was to go to the Aldo Leopold Charter School for Experiential Learning where Siah had children attending. In committee, Siah changed the allocation to $1 Million for Aldo Leopold with WNMU receiving nothing - zero dollars.
Dr. Shepard confronted Siah about the change stating it was unethical because her children went there. From that moment on, Siah seemingly decided to destroy Shepard.
(Note: the Finance Committee did approve $225,000 to the Mimbres Press for publication of literature supporting New Mexico writers and photographers. The Press is a subsidiary of WNMU and would later publish Jay Hemphill’s book.]
The first recorded incident of the campaign against Shepard started with Kathy Love, a contributor to Siah’s campaign. She did an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) on July 24 requesting documents on Shepard’s spending from 2011 to the present.
Next in December of 2023, Siah** grilled Shepard as a member of the Finance Committee making allegations of extravagant spending at WNMU with one area of focus being luxury furniture. (The Beat is requesting access to photograph the furniture.)
The story was then leaked to AP News*** and the Silver City Daily Press who both ran major articles on the issue.
Also, IPRA requests hit WNMU from the State Auditor’s Office, the Governor’s Office, Searchlight NM, and Milo Simonich of the Santa Fe New Mexican. All of them requesting information on Dr. Shepard. No other university was targeted.
(In October 2024, a letter to the editor given to the Grant County Beat accused Siah of $11,000 of improper expenses charged to her campaign. She then had to reimburse the campaign for that amount, and she soon resigned her seat.)***
The campaign against Shepard intensified with the biggest blow coming from the NM State Auditor, Joseph Maestas, who had worked with Siah previously when she was on the Finance Committee.
On November 18, 2024, Maestas sent a Letter of Concern to the President of the Board of Regents of WNMU, charging the university for lack of oversight resulting in the waste of public funds and basically ripping the Board to shreds. According to the former president, the regents were never given a chance to explain the expenditures. Plus the university has never received the findings mentioned in the audit.
(When an IPRA was done by the Beat to get those actual expenditures, the request was denied.)
On November 19, 2024, not content with the Letter of Concern and the upcoming story in Searchlight, which he knew about, the State Auditor's Office issued a Press Release on– WMNU Faces Financial Oversight Challenges.
Then on November 21, 2024 Searchlight published an article using the audit to attack Dr. Shepard.
At that time enrollment at WNMU was up 6%, including a 36% increase in freshman class admissions. Also, the Accreditation evaluation found that the university was fiscally sound with no major findings on audits over the last 12 years. The review was so good that WNMU was accredited for not just 5 years, but 10.
As one source said, “Dr. Shepard through his hard work and ability to raise funds has engineered a renaissance of the campus. He’s transformed it into an institution that the students, faculty, staff, and community can be proud of. I wonder if his ouster was done so that someone else can take over as president.”
*Kathy Love, McGinn, Montoya, Love and Curry
**Siah’s real first name is Bithiah according Silver Consolidated Schools.
***New Mexico lawmakers ask questions about spending by university president and his wife | AP News
***Why did a southwest New Mexico Senator announce her resignation?
