The Idaho Library Association has named John Held '75 the 2011 Trustee of the Year. He has served on the Payette Public Library board since 1995 and was board chairman from 2001-2010.
In 2008, he helped author the library’s five year strategic plan, which included the goal of library expansion. The library received approval from the Payette City Council in 2010 to pursue a $1.5 million bond and apply for a $400,000 USDA grant. Held and the library board had only a few months to build local support for the bond and needed a two-thirds majority to pass. The bond passed with 76 percent of the vote, the only library bond to pass in Idaho that year.
Work commenced in May 2011 to expand the library from 5,881 to 14,441 square feet. When it is finished later this year, the facility will feature a public meeting room, a new children's area, and more public access computers.
Held also serves on the board of the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was chairman of the Trustee and Friends Division of the Idaho Library Association from 2009 – 2011.
At Hamilton, Held majored in economics and was a member of Sigma Phi and WHCL-FM.
