Photos: Redington Junior / Senior High School

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The Mat-Su Borough School District celebrated the opening of their newest high school Redington Junior / Senior High School near Knik with an assembly and ribbon cutting on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015. The school opened this year for students in grades 6-10. Grades 11 and 12 will be added over the next two years. The school was named after the late Joe Redington, Sr. who is known as the father of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

A new school named for Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race co-founder Joe Redington Sr. is part of a boom in Mat-Su school construction to accommodate the region's burgeoning population.

The $65 million campus of Joe Redington Sr. Junior/Senior High School is just off Knick Knack Mud Shack Road in the growing Knik-Fairview area, which would be populous enough to qualify as Alaska's fifth-largest city if incorporated.

The nearly 95,000-square-foot school opened this week with about 470 students from grades 6 through 10. Grades 11 and 12 will be added in the next two years.

Read more: As Mat-Su population booms, new school named for 'Father of the Iditarod' opens