Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: State Track Qualifiers, Brent Bargen Passes

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

NEWS ROUND-UP: State Track Qualifiers, Brent Bargen Passes

Zahourek, Zoubek Headed to State Track Meet: Congratulations to Dorchester sophomores Jacee
Zoubek and Lena Zahourek who both qualified to compete at the Nebraska High School Track Meet this Friday. Zoubek will compete in the 100 m and the 200 m dashes, while Zahourek will compete 100 m hurdles. Good luck to Dorchester's "Double Z's" at State. If you plan on attending -- or if you want to watch and listen to the meet -- click here.

Former DHS Basketball Coach Dies at 49: We were e-mailed some sad news today. Former DHS boys basketball coach Brent Bargen -- who had a short coaching stint at Dorchester in the late 1990s and went on to become a college basketball coach -- has passed away at age 49 due to cancer. Bargen, a 1988 Crete High graduate, was most recently the head coach at Chadron State College for a decade. Bargen played basketball at Doane College and then had coaching stops at Dorchester High and Nebraska Wesleyan, before working at Kansas State University for five years. In Manhattan, he was an assistant coach, administrative assistant, and director of basketball operations. Following KSU, Bargen became an assistant coach at Long Beach State University for six years before being named Chadron State's head coach. A funeral service will be Friday at 10:30 a.m. at Southwood Lutheran Church in Lincoln. The family has requested memorials in lieu of flowers to the Nebraska Fellowship of Christian Athletes or a memorial scholarship at Doane University. Bargen is survived by his wife, Leslie, and three children, Ashley, Zac, and Jake.

Dorchester Farmer, Corn Growers President Nerud Scolds President Trump: Our news feed picked up a story on the farm news wires -- a story that reads more like an editorial than news. The article blames President Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, despite that years of unfair practices by the Chinese that have made them an economic power. The story quotes Dorchester farmer Dan Nerud, current president of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association, as saying, “As a corn farmer, I appreciate the administration’s intent to help alleviate the losses farmers are experiencing due to trade disputes and tariffs, but a penny didn’t cut it last fall and it’s not going to cut it now. Nebraska corn farmers have lost an estimated $192 million over this last week due to increased trade tensions.” The problem with the story is it fails to mention that corn prices have been in the proverbial crapper since 2014 -- three years before Trump sat down in the Oval Office. The real problem for corn growers is lack of growth in domestic demand for their product despite years of added corn acres. That's a problem that will require more than finger pointing at government officials.

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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."