Dorchester Times: Crowd Expected At Monday's DPS Board Meeting; Fate Of Ball Teams Lingers

Monday, January 13, 2014

Crowd Expected At Monday's DPS Board Meeting; Fate Of Ball Teams Lingers

DHS boys basketball team, 1956-57

The proposed merger of the Dorchester and Milford high school basketball teams is getting a second look.

A public meeting by the Dorcheter School Board has been set for this evening, Jan. 13, and it is expected the basketball merger will be revisited. There is some speculation that a school board member will make a motion to reconsider action taken last month.

The public is encouraged to attend the 7 p.m. meeting at the school.

In December, the Dorchester Public School Board voted to ask Milford Public Schools to consider permitting a two-year co-op arrangement for girls and boys basketball, similar to what has already been done for football and wrestling. DPS school board members said the vote was hurried due to pending schedules for the 2014-15 basketball season.

A howl of protest followed the move. An online survey conducted by the Dorchester Times found that of 100 respondents, more than 90% said the school board should rescind its December vote because they want to keep the basketball teams in Dorchester.

A large number of parents and perhaps current DHS basketball players are expected to attend Monday's meeting.

And based on the conversation heard within the school district, it won't just be parents of DPS students who will be attending the school board meeting.

DHS girls basketball team, 1976-77

Several members of the community said there is much concern over the proposed merger among district taxpayers who do not have children, or whose children graduated years ago.

One rural reader, who children graduated from DHS in the 1980s, e-mailed the Times to say many retirees or near-retirees "worry that busing students to Milford unnecessarily is a waste of precious tax dollars" and "at a time when property taxes are already too high."

She continued by writing, "Busing kids for sports has nothing to do with Nebraska's constitutional guarantee to provide an education. It sounds like some have limousine tastes despite a Yugo budget. It's not just current parents who pay taxes."

With that, dear readers, we leave you with a quote from Oprah Winfrey:

"Try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull."

6 comments:

AnonymousJanuary 12, 2014 at 4:21 PM
I've always liked the Times better than Facebook because I don't have to read snippy little comments made by discontent housewives spreading gossip or ragging on other women they don't like. Please don't turn your blog into the same type of format by running comments like that.
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AnonymousJanuary 13, 2014 at 11:12 AM
It's funny, you want us to stay off your blog, but you use our paper for your basketball stories, our doctors, dentist, hospital and pool.

See you soon
Friend lover
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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."