2025 True Heroes: Shel Neymark

EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT at the front desk of the Embudo Valley Library and Community Center, in Dixon. Volunteers like Shel Neymark help the local mayordomo book the community room for an acequia meeting one minute, then assist a local senior in setting up a video chat with their doctor the next. 

A gaggle of kids arrives for after-school programs just as Neymark is updating the plans for the library’s annual town-wide fiesta. As things quiet down, he pops over to the library-run La Segunda Secondhand Store, where the manager of the local food co-op, who rents space from the library, stops by to say hello. When the library’s doors finally close for the day, teens still sit on the porch, using the library’s free Wi-Fi to finish schoolwork. 

The Embudo Valley Library is the beating heart of Dixon, just like dozens of other small, nonprofit libraries throughout rural New Mexico. Yet keeping the lights on can be a massive struggle for these organizations. Neymark, a founder and longtime library board treasurer, understands these financial challenges better than most.

“So many of these libraries don’t get any government funding,” he says. “It’s all just donations and grant-writing.” Thus, every year, many libraries are one broken water heater or damaged roof away from having to close their doors. 

Around 2018, Neymark decided that more needed to be done not just for the Dixon library, but for all nonprofit libraries across the state. He began connecting independent libraries to create the New Mexico Rural Library Initiative. Then he went to Santa Fe on behalf of this new coalition to advocate for a state endowment to provide financial support to these critical institutions. With the help of then state senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino, Neymark sketched a plan for a $50 million fund that would provide each rural library with $45,000 per year—enough to cover the cost of a full-time librarian. 

Since the original endowment was created in 2019, more than $30 million has been invested in the fund, in no small part due to Neymark’s continued advocacy. 

“Shel has been a real powerhouse in reminding people that we need libraries, as a society,” says Jennifer Goyette, executive director of the Embudo Valley Library. “He’s keeping that in the consciousness of all New Mexicans—and especially our lawmakers.” 

In addition to his work with the Rural Library Initiative, Neymark still volunteers at the library’s front desk a few hours a week. It helps him stay connected to the community, but it’s also just something he loves to do. In part because, decades ago, the tight-knit community of Dixon came together to support his family when his wife was struggling with cancer. To him, working for the library is a way of paying forward this kindness. 

“This is how a community invests in itself,” he says. “If we’re going to survive in places like Dixon, we have to take care of ourselves at the local level.”