Dorchester Times: UPDATE: Four DHS Alums Now Serving As Dorchester Educators

Thursday, August 1, 2013

UPDATE: Four DHS Alums Now Serving As Dorchester Educators

Dorchester starts a new school year in less than two weeks (Aug. 13). When the school bell rings again, three new teachers will grace the halls of DPS, including two very familiar faces.

Lisa (Bruha) Lautzenhiser will be Dorchester's new second grade teacher. She will take the place of Lori Vyhnalek, who left for a job in Friend. Lautzenhiser is a Dorchester area native and a DHS alumnae (DHS Class of 1987).

According to DPS Principal Dohmen, Lautzenhiser comes highly recommended after her years of teaching in McCool Junction.

Also joining the faculty will be Ty Peteranetz, who replaces longtime educator Scott Pohl as fourth grade teacher. Peteranetz will also serve as the new DHS volleyball coach.

Finally, it has been announced that DHS alumnus Brandon Bruha (DHS Class of 2008) will be replacing industrial technology instructor Steve Fusco. Bruha will be working to complete his IT endorsement, while organizing curriculum for IT courses offered by DHS. He will also assist in coaching Longhorn girls basketball.

Other staff changes will include Ryan Voelker taking over as the new girls basketball head coach, while Brent Zoubek (DHS Class of 1995) has fully assumed the role of athletic director.

*UPDATE* -- According to several sources, the upcoming school year will mark the first time in modern school history that four DHS graduates have served as leading educators in the classroom. Terri (Feeken) Carroll, Dorchester's kindergarten teacher, is a 1977 DHS graduate. (We are told there are still a handful of fellow teachers at DPS who taught Bruha and Zoubek.)

Good luck to all DPS students and faculty members as they prepare to begin the 2013-14 school year.

7 comments:

AnonymousAugust 1, 2013 at 1:04 PM
Check the year Lisa graduated. I believe it was 1986, not 87.
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Village DwellerAugust 1, 2013 at 2:16 PM
Anonymous:

If we are wrong, we will cut in half the annual salary of our research staff.

Our regrets for the error.

Dorchester Times Staff
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wbgAugust 1, 2013 at 11:22 PM
I am so happy to see this positive change taking place at Dorchester Schools. As a taxpayer in the school district, I have been concerned for a while that so few faculty members live in the school district. I know it's unreasonable to think all teachers and admin staff can live here, but years ago at least 50% did. The superintendent lived just across the street for years.

I know Lisa L. has Dorchester stitched on her heart and soul while Brent Zoubek literally bleeds orange and black. I don't know Brandon all that well but how nice it is to see young talent like him want to come back to DHS to prepare those young minds. This is certainly a nice change from the school having to pay a teacher who despised her place of work so much she sent her kids to another school. I never figured that one out.

Good hires, Dorchester. These are people who will give 110% to insure that Dorchester is doing everything for their kids.
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AnonymousAugust 2, 2013 at 8:56 AM
There is another DHS alumni teaching at Dorchester - Terri (Feeken) Carroll is the Kindergarten teacher and a 1977 graduate.
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AnonymousAugust 4, 2013 at 2:16 AM
Look at our school board members mark boors and Steve vynalek were great longhorn students.

Go black and orange
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AnonymousAugust 4, 2013 at 9:24 AM
What's going on with the construction. I heard the building foundation is falling in
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AnonymousAugust 4, 2013 at 11:09 AM
I'm so glad about Zoubek and the Bruhas working at our school. They put Dorchester first, foremost and always. You don't have to wonder about where their loyalties lie. I'd trust them with either of my kids' education.
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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."