PITTSBURG, Kan. — The Pittsburg 150 committee pulled it off!

Just shy of 200 residents showed up to the PSU soccer pitch to pose for an aerial photo depicting the number “150” for Pittsburg’s birthday celebration on Wednesday.

Scheduled for 4 p.m., the park was looking pretty bare at 3:30, but loyal Gorillas, city staff, county officials, and even an Imperial Stormtrooper answered the call.

County Tourism Director Sarah Runyon said the photo is an opportunity to show future residents some of the faces of the city today, like a time capsule.

Despite a couple of lyrical missteps by the resident DJ, residents came together in festive spirit, listening to Starship’s “We Built This City” and Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration.”

Patches were handed out to the first 150 to arrive and everyone took their place on one of the digits painted on the grass. Drones took to the sky and Mayor Chuck Munsell read a short proclamation about the city’s 150th birthday and what it took to get us here before joining his wife at the base of the “5.”

Among the participants were two generations of planners. Andra Stefanoni helped plan this year’s celebrations, but remembers when her mother, Janeil Bryan, planned the centennial/bicentennial celebrations 50 years ago.

Janeil said the planning for 1976 began two years earlier and included a Centennial Choir that performed at various events throughout the city. She recalled the 1976 celebrations was the first time that all 30-plus nationalities came together to share their home recipes — a tradition still honored at Pitt State’s Global Fest and Frontenac’s Festa celebrations.

Janeil, a Missouri native who made Pittsburg her home 56 years ago, said the city and its people are special and that when the call goes out, they always seem to step up.

This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews