Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: State Roads Job Available In Dorchester

Saturday, March 31, 2018

NEWS ROUND-UP: State Roads Job Available In Dorchester

Happy Easter From The Times: The Times wishes our readers a happy Easter -- even if the weather could be better. May you and your families enjoy the holiday together and remember the significance of this day. “He has risen!”

State Roads Job Available In Dorchester: The Nebraska Department of Transportation is currently accepting applications for a Highway Maintenance Worker Senior in Dorchester. Starting pay is around $15.18 per hour. Great benefits include paid holiday, vacation, and sick leave as well as a retirement match of over 150%. Job duties will include operating trucks and other light equipment to complete highway maintenance work; and operating tractors with various attachments including disc, harrows, seeders, 15 foot mowers, sprayers and hand mowers to maintain highways and highway right of ways. For the job's details, click here or go to www.statejobs.nebraska.gov.

Several Incumbents, One Newcomer Apply for Dorchester Boards: Some familiar names will be on this year's ballot for Dorchester School Board and Village Board. Three incumbents are running again for DPS board -- Matt Hansen, Carol Schnell and Steve Vyhnalek. No challengers filed for any of the three school school board seats that are up in 2018. Meanwhile, for the two village board seats that are up this year, Dean Pracheil has filed to serve again, while Tom Cerney has filed as a newcomer, although Cerney has served on the board before. (Correction: We are told that the three village seats to be elected this year are currently held by Dean Pracheil, LJ Barley, and Todd Jensen. These three seats will be voted on in the general election. Residents of Dorchester have from February to July to file.)

Dorchester Library Needs Visitors -- Or It Will Close: Use it or lose it, folks! According to a flyer spotted around town, the Dorchester Community Library, located on our main street, needs more visitors or it will be closed. As the flyer says, the library is a free resource. If they don't have a book you're looking for, they will order it for you. Read a magazine and pay no subscription costs. Hours are Wednesday 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., and Saturdays 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Volunteers are also needed. Call the village at 402.946.3571 if you'd like to help.

Friend Swimming Pool May Close, According To Report: A paid advertisement in the Friend Sentinel says that Friend leaders are considering closing the Friend municipal pool. "Many days, there are more lifeguards on duty than actual swimmers," said Patrick Gates, a Friend official. It is believed that the Friend pool is one of the very last of its design, which may predate World War II, and the pool suffers from severe water loss. Gates said, "When I was a kid, the place to be all summer was at the pool," but today, "with all the technology, the kids just seem to have other things to do and the limited number of daily attendees is almost unbelievable." It appears Friend leaders are weighing whether to make costly repairs to the pool or bus Friend children to nearby pools or splash pads.

Report Says Shopko in Crete Could Be Closing: Perhaps more signs of the struggling main street retail community. We have received via e-mail two unconfirmed reports that Shopko in Crete may soon be closing. One report said that the building that currently houses the department store on Crete's main street could even be torn down. It's still just a rumor at this point.

7 comments:

AnonymousApril 1, 2018 at 8:33 PM
The Village board has 5 members serving 4 year terms. Two seats were elected in the 2016 (A.Pracheil & Hoffman). That leaves 3 seats to be elected in 2018. They are currently held by D. Pracheil, Barley, and Jensen. These 3 seats will be voted on in the general election not the primary. Residents of Dorchester have from February to July to file. Please check your facts before publishing a story. You don't want to be a creator of FAKE NEWS!
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AnonymousApril 2, 2018 at 10:17 AM
Who else is going to report it?
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AnonymousApril 2, 2018 at 11:58 AM
Ummmmmm, me thinks there will be four of five seats up for election.

Just a hunch.
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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."