Dorchester Times: EDITORIAL: Entrepreneurial Communities Grant Is A Winner

Sunday, November 23, 2008

EDITORIAL: Entrepreneurial Communities Grant Is A Winner

Gov. Dave Heineman last week announced that nearly $320,000 in grants funding had been awarded to 13 Nebraska communities through the Building Entrepreneurial Communities Act (BECA), which supports regional economic and community development partnerships in rural areas of the state.

According to the governor, BECA is a successful tool for rural development in part because it "brings city and counties together with local partners to promote a stronger regional economy."

Some of the projects receiving grants include:

$32,355 for the towns of Red Cloud and Guide Rock to promote regional businesses.

$39,600 for Dawson County and the city of Cozad to create marketing materials to help attract and retain residents, promote the Dawson County Careers Web site to those outside Nebraska, and provide entrepreneurship training in technical trades for area youth.

$32,000 for the Panhandle village of Lewellen and Garden County Schools to develop entrepreneurship skills among students and local residents, as well as develop green industry and eco-tourism opportunities.

$36,000 for the Norfolk Area Recruiters Initiative, a partnership between the cities of Battle Creek, Madison and Norfolk and Cuming County, to implement a recruiting campaign aimed at former northeast Nebraska residents that includes Web site development and direct mail.

$36,315 for a partnership between Phelps County and the village of Funk for marketing campaign to recruit alumni and others with compelling local connections to move back to the area.

It is worth noting that only 18 partnerships applied for funding this year. Again, 13 projects were funded.

We at the Times like the idea of smaller communities working together to grow their businesses and retain their younger residents. Perhaps the new members of the Dorchester Village Board can convince their peers that Dorchester needs to become more aggressive in forming a long-term strategy that includes partnering with local businesses and the school in pursuit of statewide grants -- and to allow and encourage the use of village staff resources to do so.

Maybe the members of Dorchester Area Community Association can work with the Village Board or help raise funds to provide matching dollars to improve the chances of Dorchester landing one of these statewide grants.

The BECA program seems to be a good place to start. (For more information on BECA or the application process, contact Linda Fettig at (308) 749-2291, or email linda.fettig@ded.ne.gov.) We know there are bright, energetic folks in other small Saline County communities, such as Friend and Wilber, who would jump at the opportunity to collaborate with Dorchester on such an effort. It's worth a look.

3 comments:

AnonymousNovember 23, 2008 at 2:09 PM
I am glad you mentioned collaborating with other communities. Especially Wilber. We're all in this together!

Děkuju (Thank You)
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AnonymousNovember 23, 2008 at 4:47 PM
I too like the mention of working with friend or wilber.
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AnonymousNovember 24, 2008 at 5:38 AM
Hi - we'd love to work with any of you. Need to correct my contact information - phone is now 308-380-4966 and the email is linda.fettig@nebraska.gov. Feel free to contact me. Linda
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."