{"id":15172,"date":"2025-12-18T16:22:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T23:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-hires-leroy-harris-as-new-library-director\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:45:16","slug":"cortez-hires-leroy-harris-as-new-library-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-hires-leroy-harris-as-new-library-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez hires LeRoy Harris as new library director"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LeRoy
LeRoy Harris shares his background working in libraries while addressing residents during a director finalist forum Dec. 10 at City Hall. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

LeRoy Harris will become director of the Cortez Public Library, city officials announced Thursday after a competitive process narrowed the field to three finalists.<\/p>\n

Harris, who plans to start in mid-February, brings local ties and broad professional experience to the position. His background includes partnerships with schools, cities and tribal leaders. He emphasizes collaboration as key to success.<\/p>\n

He pointed to family ties in the Four Corners during a recent public meet-and-greet with the director finalists. Harris described the Cortez area as home, saying the job appealed because it felt like a return rather than relocation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is home,\u201d he said at the candidate forum Dec. 10. \u201cLibraries bring access to the world, to people. It\u2019s a learning place, a discovering place, a place where you can enjoy new things that you love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris was selected after former director Beth Edson\u2019s departure, who returned to her hometown Columbia, Missouri, for family reasons.<\/p>\n

The hiring process involved recruiting firm Columbia Ltd. and more than 30 applicants initially, which were narrowed to three. City officials incorporated public and staff feedback from the City Hall forum and additional interviews afterward with the hiring panel.<\/p>\n

Harris will officially begin his role Feb. 17, according to a city news release.<\/p>\n

\"LeRoy
LeRoy Harris speaks with community members during a meet-and-greet for Cortez Public Library director finalists Dec. 10 at City Hall. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Harris brings 11 years of experience as a librarian and was previously branch manager and assistant director for Apache County Library District in Arizona. As branch manager and assistant manager, he served nine different rural and diverse communities, including two on the Navajo Nation land.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is familiar with the Four Corners region, having previously taught high school in Shiprock, and his dedication to serving diverse communities makes him well prepared to guide the Cortez Public Library into the future,\u201d the city\u2019s news release stated.<\/p>\n

Most recently, he was programming and technology services librarian at New Ulm Public Library in Minnesota since March 2020. While there, he represented the library through TV, radio, newspapers and YouTube. He said one virtual author talk went unexpectedly viral and reached 70,000 viewers from as far away as Vietnam.<\/p>\n

The city noted his ability to secure a $250,000 Mellon Foundation grant for the library\u2019s memory lab and to expand services, as well as how Harris launched the Emergency Preparedness Fair, which grew from 15 attendees in 2020 to more than 700 in 2025.<\/p>\n

At the public forum, he highlighted running more than 30 monthly programs, including poetry, genealogy, chess club and digital literacy, and his work with the memory lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping people get confident to the point where their daughter drives 500 miles to say thank you because they didn\u2019t think their mom could do it,\u201d Harris said, was a particularly rewarding and heartwarming experience.<\/p>\n

Correction: This article was updated Dec. 19 to correct aspects of LeRoy Harris\u2019 job experience. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

director has ties to the area and broad leadership experience<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19517,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15172\/revisions\/19517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15172"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}