We're wishing the city of Lexington an early happy birthday.

And it's a big birthday.

Lexington was founded in 1775, so it terms 250.

In the year 2025.

And even though that's two years away, a birthday bash is already in the works.

Lexington was founded actually one year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Imagine that.

I think that's pretty special.

So here we are, 248 years later getting ready to celebrate our 250th birthday in 2025.

We're planning a year long party celebrating all things Lexington.

I've appointed a group of people from all over town to help plan this party.

This commission is going to need a lot of help and ideas from the public.

We have people that make everything from beer to beer, cheese and everything in between, and we want that maker community to be a huge part of this.

We also want to take this opportunity to look at every way that we can make this city better.

We're starting early.

The city is going to commission a major piece of art to dedicate during our birthday year and we're going to ask for artists from all over the country to submit ideas.

So that in itself will take the entire time.

We're hoping to commission a piece of music that can be heard by the public for free.

One focus of the commission will be the month of June 2025.

We're calling it Coming Home Month.

We're going to invite anyone who has ever lived here, who has family here or would like to visit here, and to see all that we have to offer to come to Lexington for a month long cultural experience.

One of the first steps in our commission's work is a 2/50 birthday branding competition.

The other thing that we're looking forward to is using this as a platform to invite companies from other other states who might want to move here, people to see opportunities for economic development, people who may want to move here just on their own and live here because they see what a great place we are.

And everybody that's here and everybody that participates in this has that opportunity to make sure that this 20, 2025 is a launchpad for Lexington for the next 250 years.

Lexington wants suggestions from the public about the 250th birthday celebration and you can send yours to 250 Lex at Lexington K-Y dot gov.