Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUNDUP: Marquee Is Up, New Superintendent Could Be Announced Soon

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

NEWS ROUNDUP: Marquee Is Up, New Superintendent Could Be Announced Soon

Here's the latest breaking news from Dorchester and the surrounding area:

Helen Stehlik Celebrates 80th Birthday: Helen (Lisec) Stehlik of Dorchester will celebrate her 80th birthday on Tuesday, March 15. She has four children, Joyce Chambers, Susan Sedlak, John Stehlik and Jim Stehlik. To celebrate, her family is throwing her a card shower. Birthday greetings may be sent to her at 463 Co. Rd. 1700, Dorchester, NE 68343.

DPS Superintendent Announcement Expected Soon: In January, Dorchester Public School Superintendent Mitch Kubicek announced he would be resigning from DPS at the end of the school year. Kubicek has been part of the DPS community since 2008, just as the new school building opened its doors for the first time. Replacing him will be a difficult task, but school board members this week mulled over dozens of applications from those interested in becoming DPS' next superintendent. Sources tell us an offer to an extremely talented leader has been made. The hiring of a superintendent is is an important selection -- not only for the school but for the entire community. If our sources are correct, this individual is well suited to help our students and community, and he understands the challenges and many opportunities facing Dorchester.

New Marquee Is Up And Running: Dorchester's new electronic marquee up and running. While the frame remains the same as the marquee installed in 2007, the orange-and-black electronic sign that now graces Dorchester's Main Street median now displays a color billboard face. It's easier to read the date, time, temperature and announcements of town events. Town leaders deserve credit for replacing the broken marquee with something of this quality. The electronic marquee keeps all of our community's residents in the know.

Need Work? Village Looking For Help: The Village of Dorchester is looking for part-time outdoor summer help, as well as a part-time dumpsite attendant. If you or someone you know is interested, contact Village Hall at 402-946-3201.

Dorchester Man Sentenced For Sex Assault Gets New Trial: The Associated Press, which runs worldwide, is reporting that a Dorchester man found guilty of first-degree sexual assault of a child in 2014 has been granted a new trial by the Nebraska Court of Appeals. The AP wire says 36-year-old Raymundo Perez-Cruz's trial court judge abused his discretion by denying Perez-Cruz a jury trial because he waived it while trying to work out a plea agreement. Perez-Cruz is accused of grabbing a 13-year-old girl two summers ago and putting her in the backseat of his car before driving her to a lake near Crete, where prosecutors say the girl said he forced himself on her. Perez-Cruz had been sentenced to 25 to 40 years in prison last year. The conviction and sentence have been reversed and the case will go back to Lancaster County District Court.

Farmers Co-op Mentioned In Story About Ethanol Business Bankruptcy: Dorchester made the news again today in a story about the bankruptcy of a Spanish company, Abengoa, that owns shuttered ethanol plants at Ravenna and York. The company has millions of dollars in debts to Nebraska companies and local governments that may not be repaid. Among the Nebraska businesses mentioned in the story is Farmers Cooperative of Dorchester, which has contested a $7 million bankruptcy loan to Abengoa Bioenergy last week over concerns that some of the money could be funneled to Spain, according to Reuters.

Legislature Votes To Dole Out Food Stamps To Drug Dealers: While scanning the news wires, we read that Nebraska lawmakers voted 31-5 today to allow felons with drug convictions to receive food stamps. That's right -- our $12,000-a-year state senators voted 31-5 to let convicted drug dealers get food stamps, which more than 40 million Americans already receive. This comes a year after the Legislature repealed the state's death penalty and watered down the state's mandatory minimum criminal sentencing laws.

6 comments:

DJTMarch 9, 2016 at 8:38 PM
This story about the sexual assault is more proof that Dorchester needs to address the quality of its housing so our community attracts high caliber residents. Without knowing Perez-Cruz's immigration status, let me say that Donald Trump is onto something when he promises to deport all illegal immigrants with felony convictions.
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AnonymousMarch 10, 2016 at 6:05 PM
How on earth can 31 people in the Nebraska legislature be so stupid?!? What a joke the legislature has gotten to be. It's enough to gag a maggot!
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AnonymousMarch 13, 2016 at 10:05 PM
I am so sick and tired about reading our "progressive" legislature. Puke.
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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."