At 7, she helped save Salem’s library. She’s just getting started

Zoey Harper didn’t have a script when she spoke in the Salem City Council chambers for the first time, back in April 2024.

She was 7 years old. She needed a stepstool to reach the microphone.

Jim Scheppke, who led Salem’s community “Fund Our Libraries Now” effort to rally against proposed budget cuts to the Salem Public Library, had just met Zoey about 20 minutes prior, when he handed her a sticker from his table outside city hall. 

He’d asked Zoey’s mom, Megan Harper, if she wanted to speak in front of the budget committee that night. Harper said no, too shy to do it herself. But she could feel the excitement radiating off Zoey at the prospect. She told her daughter to go for it.

Scheppke couldn’t have predicted at the time that he’d just recruited the library supporters’ “secret weapon.” Through her love of reading and talent for public speaking, a young person helped convince the community to support a five-year levy to fund the library and restore its service hours. Voters approved it in May 2025.

“Zoey was instrumental in that, she really was,” Scheppke said. “If she hadn’t done that, I don’t know. We might not have gotten everybody on board for the livability levy.”

Now 9 years old and in the third grade, Zoey is still a long way from being eligible to run for office. It’s not part of her current plan, but the elementary schooler has continued her involvement in civic affairs. She has testified during public meetings, encouraged voter turnout and recently asked mayoral candidate Vanessa Nordyke questions on stage to help inform voters.

She traces it back to her first speech in support of her favorite part of Salem: the library.

“It just felt really important to say, like: ‘Hey, I came here, and I’m here to support the library, so just help us with that,” Zoey recalled. 

Ahead of her speech, the city’s budget committee had discussed painful budget scenarios for months, facing options one councilor described as “a smorgasbord of awful.”

The committee was still feeling the sting of 82% of city voters rejecting a payroll tax a few months before that would have prevented cuts. The levy wasn’t on the table, yet, and the imminent cuts to the library would have closed the library’s West Salem branch, laid off six staff members and cut two vacant positions. 

Public testimony took place in the council chambers, in front of cameras and with a crowd of library supporters filling the gallery seats.

When Zoey stepped up onto the stool, the budget committee’s stoic expressions broke into smiles. Zoey’s mom, Megan Harper, crouched by one side and her younger sister, Hannah, flanked the other, barely peeking above the lectern. 

“My name is Zoey Harper,” she told the group. “No more cuts to our library please. I learned to read myself before kindergarten and I love reading books. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I just love this library.”

That same night, after testimony from her and dozens of others in the community, the committee unanimously approved then-Mayor Chris Hoy’s proposal to use hotel tax funds to delay the cuts for the year.

Zoey had fun doing it. She said she’s never had a fear of public speaking.

“It’s kind of the opposite,” she said.

In the following year, she’d table with Scheppke outside of the library, asking community members to reject cuts and later to support higher taxes to sustain the library’s funding. Scheppke called Zoey and Hannah their best lobbyists. They’d run to catch up with people before they could reach the parking lot, then bring them back to the table to take a pamphlet and learn more about the library’s services.

Zoey testified about her love for the library in front of city officials four more times as they considered how to balance the city budget. Perhaps her most impactful was during a Nov. 25, 2024, city council meeting as councilors considered whether they wanted to ask voters for a property tax increase.

“I have been to the library many times with my family and it is one of my favorite places to go. Books are important to me because I love reading and I have done many things at the library. And I really like going there,” Zoey testified at the meeting.

Mayor Julie Hoy, then a councilor and mayor-elect who had questioned the need for the levy, recalled Zoey’s testimony hours later, ahead of the vote. 

“Testimony from, it was Zoey, I think, tonight, was enough to make me vote yes,” Hoy said, and smiled. “It was wonderful.”

Scheppke said Hoy’s vote, giving the levy unanimous support from the council, was critical.

“That felt really good,” Zoey said. “Because I didn’t know that someone so small like me could actually change someone’s mind like that. But it happened. And that just made me happy, that one: I changed her mind. And two: she changed her mind. Because I really like our library.”

Zoey’s written argument in support of the library was printed in the May 2025 voter’s pamphlet mailed to hundreds of homes alongside ballots. In it, she shared her love of the library’s carved wooden meerkat, its dollhouse and, of course, its books.

On election night, as the adults who supported the levy partied at the Willamette Heritage Center after the first ballots dropped with a clear lead, Zoey was asleep. 

Her mom woke her up with the good news.

“I was like, ‘Zoey, we did it!’ And you were like, ‘OK,” Megan Harper said, laughing. 

Since the levy passed, Zoey has continued to advocate for her favorite place in the city. Ahead of this May’s election, which will decide the majority of city council seats, she submitted a question to mayoral candidate Nordyke during Salem Reporter’s town hall.

Later that month, she moderated Progressive Salem’s family-friendly mayoral candidate forum. Joined by her mom, Zoey posed questions to Nordyke that were submitted by the community. She was a composed and confident host.

“That was really fun. I really liked being up there on the stage,” Zoey said of the forum.

Megan Harper said Zoey comes from a family that believes in civic engagement. Harper’s dad served on the school board for Monitor Elementary School in Mount Angel, and her mom was involved in the parent teacher club. Zoey’s other grandparents, in Illinois, cook Thanksgiving meals to serve those in need.

Harper said she believes everybody has something to give to the community, even if they don’t have Zoey’s talent for public speaking.

“But I think it’s cool that, from a young age, she’s discovering that part of her gift is to be a pretty out there and loud advocate,” Harper said. “It’s really fun to see her get excited and passionate.”

When Salem Reporter sat down at the library to interview Zoey, it happened to be her school’s career day. She was dressed as a librarian. It’s what she wants to be when she grows up.

“I’m just very interested in libraries, especially because I started reading from a very young age,” Zoey said. “I really, really liked reading, and I love that the library is a place to just read. And so I think it would be a really cool job to be a librarian with all the books surrounding me.”

Her favorite books are the “Whatever After” series, where a pair of siblings adventure into classic fairy tales and mix up the plot, and the “Who Was?” series of biographies.

Her favorite classes are reading and writing. She also enjoys acting, and recently wrote her own play about the importance of being unique.

At school, she updates her classmates about the city council meetings she attends and encourages them to get involved. She believes anyone can do it. 

“You just have to gather up some of your courage and know what you love, and love what you know, and just go for it. And have fun,” Zoey said.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.

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