St. Paul’s Lutheran Church was founded in 1884.  Along with a new church the need must have been felt for a Christian education.  The early records show that the one building was used for a church, school and parsonage.  The pastors served as the teachers.

The early records are few and very brief.  In 1899 the building was remodeled to serve as a one-room school.  1910 was the date for the first fulltime teacher.  In 1917 the congregation hired their first female teacher since all men were being called to military duty.  The school temporarily closed in 1918 to eliminate trouble from the non-German citizens in and around Cheney.

The school reopened in 1921, and the next three teachers were women.

In 1923, electric lighting was installed in the school building, and in 1931 the school enrollment was 17.

A portion of the present school building was built in 1954.  Along with the new school building came a slightly different brand of teaching.  This included more outside participation in the form of spelling bees at radio stations in Wichita, informative field trips and more audio and visual aids.

Mention school days and everyone has memories:  Playing dancing games in Pastor’s hayloft, putting turpentine on Pastor’s mean old rooster, football in the pasture among all the cacti, playing their own brand of shinny (with tin cans and sticks), track meets with everyone returning sunburned, campouts where food was gone the first day, mini blizzards when cars slid into the ditch, field trips where parents outnumbered the students, and the first trip to Seward.

Over the next several decades new programs were gradually introduced:  Wednesday morning chapel worship, environmental studies, Thanksgiving dinners, athletic competitions, and band programs.  In 1984, the school got its first computer.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Preschool was organized in 1980.  After two years, the program grew to 4 different classes.  When the Outreach Center was purchased in 2002, the preschool moved there to have a larger space (which it shares with the church’s youth group).

In 1998, a new large-scale construction project brought a larger, improved facility for both the church and the school.  A gym, kitchen, conference room, and 3 classrooms were added.  A new roof was also put on the school at this time.  This also allowed for the implementation of 4 separate classrooms with 4 teachers.