Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: Andrea Pracheil Elected Village Board Chair; DPS COVID-19 Risk 'Moderate'

Saturday, December 12, 2020

NEWS ROUND-UP: Andrea Pracheil Elected Village Board Chair; DPS COVID-19 Risk 'Moderate'

Pracheil Elected Chair of Village Board: Andrea Pracheil was elected chair of the Dorchester village board by her fellow board members at the board's December meeting on Dec. 7. Matt Scholz has been elected chair pro tem, meaning he will be in charge of meetings when Pracheil is not present. The village board has also assigned its members to key oversight posts in the following areas of village business: Parks (Sarah Wenz), streets (Roger Miller), sewer/water (Pracheil), cemetery (Scholz), electricity (Miller), buildings (Kelly Vyhnalek), and safety (Wenz). Gloria Riley was reappointed as town clerk and treasurer. (We would post minutes from the meeting, but they haven't been updated online since September.)

DPS COVID-19 Risk Remains Moderate: Dorchester Public School's COVID-19 risk meter remains at the "moderate" level, despite school case numbers being very low. This is because Saline County's overall risk remains in the red zone, as determined by local public health officials. The school reminds parents that they will be contacted if their child(ren) is/are deemed to have been in close contact with a positive individual.

DHS Boys Basketball Team Suffers First Loss: The Dorchester boys basketball team struggled last night (Friday, Dec. 11) in its first road contest of the season. DHS fell to Bruning-Davenport/Shickley by a score of 38-13.

DHS Girls Drop Two This Week: The DHS girls basketball team lost its two contests this week. On Thursday, Dec. 10, the DHS girls dropped its game against Exeter-Milligan 35-17, despite being led by Jaycee Zoubek's nine points. The Lady Longhorns then fell to BDS last night (Friday, Dec. 11) by 52-26. DHS was again led by Jaycee Zoubek, who scored 11.

Consumer Alert - Fake N95 Masks: In this era of COVID-19, be careful who you're buying masks from. Federal authorities seized over 100,000 counterfeit N95 masks from a warehouse in El Paso, Texas. The masks looked exactly like N95s produced by 3M.

No Thanks to You, Andrew: One hundred fifty-four years ago this month, in December 1866, Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson's veto of a resolution that named Nebraska as the 37th state. It is the only time in the nation's history that a statehood measure became law despite a president's veto. It makes us wonder why Nebraska has a Johnson County or anything else named after Andrew Johnson.

1 comment:

cynical richardDecember 12, 2020 at 5:36 PM
.....i hereby declare that Johnson Creek is no longer named as such ............... that it be more appropriately named for something more fitting of the times in which we live ................. something like LGBQTXWZ-Indigenous-BLM-Parasite-People-Rule-Forever-and-Ever-But-Strike -the-Amen-Part Creek .............................................
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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."