Eden Prairie Schools’ centennial bash wins heritage honor

It was a heckuva party.

So great was the Eden Prairie Schools’ 2024 celebration of its 100-year history – with the school district’s historic 1924 gymnasium as the centerpiece – that the year-long event won a Heritage Preservation Award on Tuesday.

The annual City of Eden Prairie award recognizes “an outstanding contribution to the preservation, rehabilitation, restoration and use of Eden Prairie’s heritage resources.” It is decided by the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission, a seven-member volunteer panel charged with safeguarding and promoting Eden Prairie’s history and historical features.

Accepting the award at the May 6 Eden Prairie City Council meeting on behalf of Eden Prairie Schools were Josh Swanson, superintendent of schools; Dirk Tedmon, executive director of marketing and communications; and Grace Becker, director of marketing and communications.

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Tedmon and Becker are credited with taking the 100th anniversary idea and running with it. The Eden Prairie Consolidated School – now called the Administrative Services Center – was completed in 1924 and was considered a shining beacon of Eden Prairie’s progress. Electricity, running water, and central heating were considered modern amenities, and the new school – unlike the one-room schoolhouses it replaced – had all three.

Its gymnasium was a community game-changer. With a basketball court, bleachers along one side and an elevated stage at one end, it became Eden Prairie’s gathering spot. According to the Eden Prairie Historical Society, it hosted not only sporting events but also community movie nights, town hall meetings, plays, dances, graduation ceremonies and more.

Restored, actively used, and then made a centerpiece of last year’s many 100th-anniversary events, the historic gym is a big part of what made the Eden Prairie Schools award-worthy, according to the commission.

“The 100th year celebration brought awareness of the gym to hundreds of people, the celebration and continued maintenance of the gym demonstrates Eden Prairie Schools’ commitment to the preservation of a treasured landmark,” said commission member Rod Fisher. “And we are greatly appreciative of that.”

Gym is a focal point

Kathie Case, president of the historical society and part of the Gym Task Force credited with restoring and preserving the gymnasium over the years, said the task force was responsible for some early celebration brainstorming as the milestone 100th anniversary approached.

She recalled a task force member, Charlie Crocker, floating an idea: “He said, ‘You should have a big dance in there.’”

Added Case: “We’re thinking, ‘Oh, how’s that going to go over with Josh?’”

Hearing her recollection, the superintendent of schools this week said, “Pretty well! Pretty well, actually!”

As part of the 100th anniversary, the gym not only hosted a Citywide Prom but also featured a historic artifacts gallery, guided tours, and other large-scale community events like Family Fun Day.

The district worked with local historians to ensure that the gym was presented in an authentic way. “By integrating interior branding, a commemorative plaque, and exterior historic signage, the district has not only maintained but elevated the gym’s role as a living piece of Eden Prairie’s educational heritage,” wrote those who nominated the Eden Prairie Schools for the city award.

“This is not just mothballed space,” noted Swanson. “This is a space where our kids are still using it, day in and day out, with our preschool students, and we have Community Education classes in there. So, it’s a living space. But then it also connects with the history of the community.”

Mayor Ron Case this week expressed gratitude that the gym has been preserved and was introduced to so many new people during last year’s anniversary events.

“It was near to getting gutted back in the late ‘90s,” he said, complimenting school officials on their use of the gym as a focus of the 2024 celebration.

“What a grand, great idea. Thank you Grace, Dirk, and Dr. Swanson.”

Anniversary party grew and grew

Activities in the historic gym weren’t the only way the school district’s 100th anniversary was celebrated. There was also an all-school parade and so much more.

“It also was small work that people didn’t always see,” said Tedmon. “Like our teaching and learning department worked with teachers to develop lesson plans for all grade levels about the history of the school district, with projects and information, so that whether you were a kindergartner or a seventh-grader or a senior, you were really getting this experience of what does it mean to be a part of this 100-year legacy of Eden Prairie Schools. So, it was big things like the prom in the community but it was also small things with kids in the classrooms.”

How many hours of work went into the celebration and its events?

“It’s hard to quantify,” Tedmon said. “I would say we had big ideas that got bigger as we got into it. It was a lot of work. It really became the entire focus of our district’s community engagement work for last year, because we knew this was an important way to bring in people who might have lost touch with the school district, or who were empty nesters and didn’t have that connection. And so we wanted a chance for people to re-engage.”

Added Swanson: “It was all these different touch points. And that meant it was accessible. So, from kids in the school, to parents, to residents who have been here for decades and decades and decades, there were moments in the whole design that were accessible for everybody to celebrate. 

“When we talk about community, that’s what it’s all about, right? It’s not just one group or another group, it’s all of us coming together collectively.”

“And it’s still lasting,” Grace Becker said about the year-long party’s ongoing influence on residents. “We saw that it had such an impact, and that’s part of why it was so worth all the work that went into it. It’s just really going to pay dividends for the whole city.”