Dorchester Times: DHS Captures Numerous Awards At State Journalism Competition

Saturday, August 8, 2020

DHS Captures Numerous Awards At State Journalism Competition

Even in the COVID-19 era, Dorchester High School continues its longstanding tradition of producing some of Nebraska's finest journalism.

Earlier this year, five DHS students were awarded honors earlier at the NSAA State Journalism Competition. (UPDATE: The Crete News has published an article on these awards and others earn by DHS journalism students.)

DHS competed in the Class C competition (schools with fewer than 150 students in grades 10 through 12). Due to COVID-19 restrictions, results were announced online via a live stream through Striv in late April.

Dorchester students earned several awards, including:

Breanna Muff, a senior, earned first place in the category of Yearbook Sports Feature Writing for the second consecutive year.

Mackenzie Jirsa, a junior, place seventh in Infographics.

Jose Real, a junior, placed fifth in Sports/Action Photography.

Alli Novak, a junior, placed third in Yearbook Sports Feature Writing for the second straight year.

Danni McKnight, a junior, placed third in Sports/Action Photography and fifth in Yearbook Feature Writing.

The team of Breanna Muff, Danni McKnight, and Alli Novak placed fourth in Yearbook Theme Development

Overall, DHS placed ninth out of 35 Nebraska schools -- and fifth overall in traditional Class D.

Dorchester was the third smallest school to receive medals, and only one school smaller finished higher.

Because Dorchester only has a yearbook as a journalism project, they could only be entered in 10 of the 25 categories. This makes there placing even more outstanding. (But maybe it's time to revive the student newspaper and publishing it online?)

It's worth noting that this is the fourth year in a row that a Dorchester student has placed first in Yearbook Sports Feature Writing. Brittney Zoubek placed first in 2017; Makenna Bird placed first in 2018; and Breanna Muff placed first in 2019 and 2020.

Congratulations to these budding journalists and their advisor, Mrs. Sandy Severance.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Village Dweller checks all reader comments to determine if they are appropriate for print.

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."