[Editor's Note: Members of the public have reached out to the Beat to share information about what happened to Dr. Shepard, but wish to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. One has claimed that there is an ongoing group meeting to further harass Shepard headed by a downtown businessman.]

By Frost McGahey, Investigative Reporter

"Governor Grisham had planned on joining the Harris Administration in D.C. after the election," a source said. "She was shocked when Trump won."

"The plan was for (Lt. Gov.) Howie (Morales) to become governor, and other people would move up in the administration. They were so dumbfounded by the election results that they had to regroup. It was after that the Santa Fe attacks began with the first one being done by the State of New Mexico Auditor."

Another source said, "Because of Dr. Shepard's hard work and successful fundraising, he'd really improved WNMU. So now the president's job became a desirable position. And there had been rumors that Howie wanted that job."

Before the election the smear campaign on Shepard had stalled probably for two reasons.

First was the highly successful reaccreditation audit that took place in October. The auditors held a meeting to ask staff and students what they thought of Dr. Shepard's management of the university. One witness said there were over 50 people there who praised Shepard's work. When the official notice of a ten-year accreditation came this January, WNMU's Vice President Jack Crocker said, "The University met every standard without any danger of probation, demand for monitoring or even requests for additional information – an uncommonly clean audit."

The second reason was the editorial by Michael Baca. In it he states:
* "On April 22nd Senator Siah Correa Hemphill apparently used personal funds to quietly reimburse her campaign for $11,000 of improper expenses she had made. (Attached was a snapshot of her campaign expenditures report.) And that is just the tip of the iceberg of her wrongful spending.

"This is the same grandstanding senator who ripped into the Western New Mexico University president for supposedly "lavish spending" by the school on the taxpayers' dime, while she herself was living it up on the dime of powerful special interests' campaign contributions. O, the hypocrisy!"

With Governor Grisham's Washington dreams dashed, Joseph Maestas, the State Auditor on November 18, 2024 proclaimed thousands of dollars in wasteful spending. The odd thing is that he never shared the particulars with the Dr. Shepard or the Board of Regents so they could explain the expenditures.

The 2023 audit had no financial irregularities or for the prior 10 years. One source said that former State Senator Siah Correa Hemphill was close friends of Maestas, as her father had been.

When the Beat filed an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) to obtain the work papers backing up Maestas's claim, it was denied. However, his staff readily shared information with Searchlight New Mexico who had run negative articles on Shepard prior to this.** After the release of the damaging audit, Searchlight ran another critical article on Dr. Shepard on November 21st.

More to follow.

*Why did a southwest New Mexico senator announce her resignation? (grantcountybeat.com)
**Dr. Shepard – the focus of a Political Witch Hunt? (grantcountybeat.com)