Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: Dorchester Students Excel In Statewide Competitions

Sunday, March 18, 2018

NEWS ROUND-UP: Dorchester Students Excel In Statewide Competitions

Dorchester Design Selected As Statewide Winner For White House Easter Egg Roll: Dorchester Public School has long been noted for its first-class art program, but now the program is receiving major national attention. The Easter egg design submitted by Dorchester art students has been selected by the Nebraska Department of Education to represent the Cornhusker State at the White House Easter Egg Roll on April 2. All schools across the country were invited to decorate an egg that represents their state or territory, using specific guidelines. Dorchester students sat down with Mrs. Stacy Lutjemeyer, DPS' K-12 art instructor, and decided what to put on the design. Students looked up Nebraska's state emblems and brainstormed how they would work into a design, while Mrs. Lutjemeyer sketched possible designs. The students' final design was submitted to the State Department of Education and was selected by state officials as the state winner to be displayed at the White House Egg Roll. Congratulations to Dorchester's creative art students for this national honor! (UPDATE: See the Friend Sentinel's article on this achievement by clicking here.)

Daisha Hoffman To Represent DHS At State Speech Contest: Dorchester High School's Daisha Hoffman will be representing her school and community at Nebraska's State Speech Competition this coming weekend at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. This big news follows Daisha's stellar performance at the district speech competition at Lincoln Southwest High School on March 13 and her first-place finish in the conference speech meet Feb. 21. Congratulations to Daisha on this amazing accomplishment!

Dorchester's FBLA Adds To Its Long History Of Statewide Honors: This blog has often reported on the many accomplishments of Dorchester's Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter. Now we add more awards to that long list. This past week, several DHS students attended the University of Nebraska's Business Day event, competing against students from all across Nebraska, including students from Class A, Class B, Class C and Class D schools. The following Longhorn students walked away from the event with awards:

Makenna Bird - 1st place - Business Calculations
Jacee Zoubek - 1st place - Financial Math
Kyra Creamer - 2nd place - FBLA Principles and Procedures
Josh Thompson - 2nd place - Financial Math
Josh Thompson - 3rd place - Introduction to Business
Dorchester - 2nd place - Chapter Scoring

For those who are unfamiliar, the (FBLA) is a nationwide career and technical student organization. FBLA is the largest student-run organization in the United States. Over the years, Dorchester has become a force to be reckoned within the FBLA universe and its statewide competitions, and DHS has produced several statewide FBLA officers.

1 comment:

Don HoffmanMarch 25, 2018 at 9:43 AM
Daisha made it through the first two rounds of the day, facing stiff competition from a wonderful group of young speakers. She completed in the finals and placed sixth. We are all very proud of Daisha and the hard work she put into her competitions all year.
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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."