libevent and libexpat not found

[Adam Gold]

Hello.

I'm running Centos 7.5 with a 4.19.elrepo kernel and am trying to 
compile Unbound 1.8.1. My configure options are:

./configure --with-libevent=/usr/lib64/libevent.so 
--with-libexpat=/usr/lib64/libexpat.so --enable-checking 
--enable-static-exe --enable-lock-checks --enable-alloc-checks 
--with-conf-file=/var/spool/postfix/usr/lib/unbound/unbound.conf 
--with-pidfile=/var/spool/postfix/usr/lib/unbound/unbound.pid 
--with-run-dir=/var/spool/postfix/usr/lib/unbound 
--with-chroot-dir=/var/spool/postfix/usr/lib/unbound 
--with-rootkey-file=/var/spool/postfix/usr/lib/unbound/root.key 
--with-rootcert-file=/var/spool/postfix/usr/lib/unbound/ --disable-gost

The specific problem I'm having is getting it to recognize libevent and 
libexpat (I have installed the header files, expat-devel and 
libevent-devel as well as the core files). The messages I get are:
1) for libevent: 'configure: error: Cannot find the libevent library in 
/usr/lib64/libevent.so'
2) for libexpat: 'configure: error: Could not find libexpat, expat.h'

Also, based on a message board, I saved a file in /etc/ld.so.conf.d 
called usr-local.conf and wrote /usr/lib64/libevent.so and 
/usr/lib64/libexpat.so. I then saved and entered 'ldconfig' into the 
terminal and pressed enter. There was no change though.

Have I got the names of the libevent and libexpat library files correct? 
Where else can I be looking to fix this (FYI, I have 1.8.1 up and 
running with Debian). While I understand these two libraries are not 
essential I've experienced markedly improved performance with them in 
the past so I'd like to try and keep them.

Any and all thoughts are most welcome.

(P.S. I went back to March in the archives looking for information on 
this but didn't find any. My luck the answer will be on the page, 
crystal clear in February).