News Release

Mountain Plains Library Association Awards Scholarships

The Past Presidents’ Advisory Council of the Mountain Plains Library Association (MPLA) is pleased to announce that Shay Beezley and Conrrado Saldivar are the inaugural recipients of the Past Presidents’ Scholarship, which provides $1,000 toward the cost of attending the MPLA Leadership Institute.

   
                        Shay Beezley

Shay Beezley is Assistant Director, Metadata & Cataloging, at the Chambers Library at University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.  Shay is the creator of the Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, and is an active contributor to the Oklahoma Library Association.  She is the current chair of MPLA’s Communications and Professional Development Committees.

                            Conrrado Saldivar

Conrrado Saldivar is the Tech Services Manager at the Natrona County Library in Casper, Wyoming, and serves as Guest Faculty at the University of Washington iSchool.  Conrrado is a past president of the Wyoming Library Association, and led the Association through a period marked by adverse legislation and censorship attempts.  He has been an MPLA member since 2020.  

The Past Presidents’ Scholarship is new in 2025, and came together quickly thanks to enthusiastic support from past presidents across the 12-state MPLA region.  Because the scholarship program was established after applications for the 2025 Leadership Institute were underway, the selection process was based on the application materials for the 30 fellows selected to attend.  In future years, the scholarship committee will offer a separate scholarship application and promote the scholarship opportunity along with the Leadership Institute.

The 2025 Leadership Institute fellows are an impressive group, so the scholarship committee focused on fellows who are MPLA members and plan to contribute to or seek leadership positions within MPLA in the future.  Shay Beezley and Conrrado Saldivar exemplify these traits, but it was not easy to select just two individuals from such a strong cohort.  

The past presidents who assisted in the selection process commend all of this year’s fellows for their commitment to professional development, and encourage them to continue to grow through professional organizations including MPLA.  Past Presidents’ Advisory Council Chair Amadee Ricketts said, “It is exciting to see the next generation of library leaders building their leadership skills and expertise.  Congratulations to Conrrado and Shay, and to all of the 2025 Leadership Institute cohort.  We look forward to seeing what the future holds for each of them.”

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The Mountain Plains Library Association (MPLA) is a 12-state association of librarians, library paraprofessionals and friends of libraries. Its purpose is to promote the development of librarians and libraries by providing significant educational and networking opportunities.  The MPLA region includes Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

The MPLA Leadership Institute was established in 2002, and brings together emerging library leaders from the MPLA region with nationally recognized facilitators.  The 2025 Leadership Institute will be led by co-facilitators Sharon Morris and Jamie LaRue, at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado.

Learn more about MPLA and the MPLA Leadership Institute at mpla.us.