Dorchester Times: Dorchester-Milford Activities Merger: Where We Stand To Date

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Dorchester-Milford Activities Merger: Where We Stand To Date

As this blog reported earlier, the Dorchester and Milford school board recenlty approved a two-year trial sports co-op that will begin next school year.

Several readers have sent us e-mails inquiring what are the latest developments on the situation. Here is a roundup of what we know:

The Milford-Dorchester junior high football merger will begin next season.

The schools' varsity wrestling co-op will begin next school year, as well.

A two-year varsity football co-op begins with the 2014-2015 season -- as long as projected combined enrollment numbers fall in the Class C-1 range. If the move would take the DHS-MHS squad into Class B, the co-op would be ended.

Junior high wrestling will be combined for 2013-14 and 2014-15.

The two schools already coop in other activities -- and not just athletics. Activities already merged include Future Business Leaders of America activities.

If readers, including school administration officials or school board members, see any incorrect information or if we have failed to mention important details, please let us know in the "comments" section of this story.

8 comments:

AnonymousDecember 6, 2012 at 3:34 PM
Is that what the helmets are gonna look like?
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AnonymousDecember 6, 2012 at 7:50 PM
I'm from Milford and have been told officials are proposing a helmet a lot like the one shown here
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AnonymousDecember 6, 2012 at 8:27 PM
I would like to see a co-op with the activities that Milford has that Dorchester doesn't, like cross country, baseball, softball, golf and tennis. I know numbers are low, but think all should be albe to choose their sport and not just have a limited selection.
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AnonymousDecember 7, 2012 at 8:37 AM
Important concers

Football helmets

Wow
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AnonymousDecember 12, 2012 at 2:24 PM
FBLA isn't merged, and it isn't planned to be, at least for now.
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AnonymousDecember 13, 2012 at 8:30 AM
Who really cares what the helmets look like. I care about the quality of sportsmanship and learning these kids will receive. Great life lesson to be out for sports. Sounds silly but you learn to get along with others and understand defeat and winning and how to handle them. We should be encouraging our kids to participate in sports, not sit around and play in the house with computers and games. Get out there and really live life, not a fake life those games on the computer and play station represent. I played sports all my high school years and I think I am a better person because of it. I bet many an athlete can say the same thing.
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Big MacDecember 13, 2012 at 5:21 PM
I played for Dorchester all four years in high school. How the helmets looked were always a big deal since they were experimenting with the Longhorn helmets back in my day.

If you don't think it matters what a helmet looks like, you didn't strap one on in high school ... and you probably never played a down of football in your life.

Go HORNS! Or Horned Eagles! Or whatever DHS will be for the foreseeable future.
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AnonymousDecember 17, 2012 at 9:51 AM
Your right Big Mac...I didn't play football. I played volleyball and basketball and track. I don't remember what the football helmets looked like. Sounds like you made a big deal of the looks of the helmet. Are you a better person because of what the helmet looked like? I doubt it. I was just saying that the sportsmanship and learning to get along with others is more important than what a helmet might look like.
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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."