Colorado Springs School District 11 celebrates 150 years of educating the community

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Colorado Springs School District 11 is celebrating a big milestone. It's the district's 150th year of education.

Thursday night, the district is hosting a Sesquicentennial Celebration at Garry Berry Stadium.

D11 is the oldest school district in Colorado Springs. Just one year after the city came to be, D11 was founded as the first school district.

"We are very proud of the fact that we are the central city school district in the heart of the city and so we’re very excited to celebrate this monumental year. We know that means so many generations of kids have come through our doors, they’ve graduated from our high schools, they’ve gone on to do amazing things," said Devra Ashby, a spokesperson for District 11.

A lot has changed in that time, the district has pictures on the walls of the board room.

"The school district at the time was very, very small. It was just a few miles square footage and now we encompass a lot of the Downtown corridor, the Garden of the Gods corridor, all the way up to Woodmen, south to the airport, west to 31st, and out east to Powers," said Ashby.

This school year, they'll focus on highlighting the changes and rich history.

"Since I’ve been helping put this together, I’ve been researching a lot of our alumni and we’ve got some phenomenal people, Olympic athletes, small business owners, football players, Super Bowl winners, all kinds of people that make up Colorado Springs School District 11," said Ashby.

The event at Garry Berry Stadium kicks off at 6 p.m. and runs through 8 p.m.

Participants can take a walk through time while enjoying fun, school-based interactive activities, student performances, drawings for prizes, local food trucks, and more.