For 719 Day, proclaim what you love about living in the 719 area code
You may silently give thanks for the privilege of living in the 719 area code every day, but for the second year in a row, local public radio station KRCC (91.5 FM) wants you to celebrate out loud to mark what they’ve dubbed 719 Day.
719 Day is like Free Slurpee® Day, in that both Days are based on a date in July and an event or entity comprised of the same numbers. Free Slurpee® Day, for instance, falls on 7/11, which, as you have probably noted, is the name of a chain of convenience stores that offer a frozen drink called a Slurpee®. If you go to a 7-Eleven on 7/11, you can get one for free.
Eight days later, on July 19, we have 719 Day, which is also the area code for a large swath of southeastern Colorado, including Colorado Springs, its biggest city, and Manitou Springs, one of its smaller ones. To mark 719 Day, KRCC wants you to share your favorite things about southeastern Colorado with them.
Send them a poem about what you love about the 719 area code, sing words of praise into their voicemail, or just message them a simple statement about how great it is to live in the area. You can email 719Day@KRCC.org and or call 719-326-3622 where you can leave a voicemail message.
KRCC is also holding a backyard hootenanny on 7/19 at the Southern Colorado Public Media Center (720 N. Tejon St.) with music, a food truck, giveaways, free soft drinks and more.
The Bulletin is also celebrating 719 Day
We’re not only helping our public media colleagues at KRCC gather 719 Day responses – we also invite you to send your pictures, poems and quotes to the Pikes Peak Bulletin, to illustrate what 719 means to you.
Retired Air Force Gen. Marty France sent us two of his favorite shots of Garden of the Gods after a snowstorm, and included a note that said, “As a photographer,
there's just too much to love about the 719.”
Chauncy Johnson, who lives in southeast Colorado Springs, said he appreciates that, “Unlike Denver, we have one area code, so you always know where you’re at.”
Bob Curtis grew up in Colorado Springs when it was still part of the 303 area code and moved downtown from his childhood home in Village Seven at around the same time as the code changed to 719 on March 5, 1988. (If they’d planned a little better, they could have switched on March 3 – 3/03).
Curtis is smitten with downtown and the Westside, where he has lived and worked ever since.
“My wife and I, the only reason that we ever go further than Wahsatch is to visit my parents,” he said.
Retired teacher Steve Kern, who is married to District 5 Councilor Nancy Henjum, penned a poem about 719 with a very appropriate name for the water-strapped region.
Then, there’s me – Pikes Peak Bulletin contributor Karin Zeitvogel. I’ve been coming to the 719 since the 1980s to visit family in Pueblo, and started visiting my son at the Air Force Academy in 2017; I moved here in 2022.
Here’s a picture I took in 2018 of a place none of us has seen for a few years – the inside of the U.S. Air Force Academy chapel. It’s closed for repairs with an estimated completion date in 2027.
And here’s a haiku to go with it:
Inside the chapel
Light invites a silent thought
That kindness trumps might.
Don’t forget to get your entry to KRCC at 719Day@KRCC.org and or call 719-326-3622 ahead of 7/19; entries may be submitted to the Pikes Peak Bulletin at Heila@PikesPeakBulletin.org.
