Dorchester Times: NEWS ROUND-UP: Dorchester School Enrollment Up 25% Since 2017

Monday, July 18, 2022

NEWS ROUND-UP: Dorchester School Enrollment Up 25% Since 2017

School Enrollment Sees Solid Growth: According to information from Superintendent Daryl Schrunk, Dorchester Public School has experienced solid growth in its K-12 enrollment from 2017. The school grew from 172 students five years ago to an estimated 215 for the upcoming school year. That's a 25% increase. When including Dorchester's pre-kindergarten figures, school enrollment is nearly 240 students.

School Leader Wants to Help Spur Housing, Economic Development: Superintendent Schrunk tells the Times that the school district wants to help Dorchester promote housing and economic development efforts -- and he wants to discuss the possibilities with interested residents. According to Schrunk, the school's key selling points are its small class sizes -- with an average class size of 16 -- and opportunities for students in both academics and athletics. Schrunk's vision is to advertise the vacant lots and houses for sale in Dorchester, to attract people to build or buy (or remodel existing houses). Schrunk says the ad could be a combined effort of Renew Dorchester, the community foundation, the village government, the school, and perhaps others, all of whom would pay for the ad and be recognized as sponsors of the initiative.

DHS Rocks State Journalism Contest: Earlier, we failed to note the success of the DHS journalism team at the Nebraska Journalism Contest this spring. Highlights included freshman Gabby Theis earning first place in news/feature photography. In all, the DHS team captured 17 medals as eight Longhorns competed (the most ever to compete at state for DHS). Hailey Schweitzer won five medals alone -- the most that any individual student has won at the state competition. Overall, DHS placed fifth place despite being the smallest school to compete in the competition. (The Dorchester Times is taking applications from these talented young journalists to serve as future editors.)

Two Longhorns Make UNL's Dean's List: Dorchester had two mentions on the UNL dean's list for the spring semester. Jaki Acosta, a junior marketing major, made the dean’s list at UNL's College of Business. Holly Nigh, a freshman music education major, made the dean’s list for the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts.

New Home Going Up on North Side: Another new house is being built in Dorchester after the lot sizes in Dorchester's northside development were increased to roughly one-third acre. According to our sources, a construction firm from Adams County is building the spec home -- a move that could set off more construction of homes in Dorchester. The new house is located just off 12th Street, across from the DHS practice field and track grounds.

1 comment:

AnonymousJuly 18, 2022 at 11:17 PM
Congrats to those making the deans list mentioned above! But there is more than just two however that made a deans list of some sort. Maybe look into different colleges and see what former DHS students that are currently in college have made their schools deans list..
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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."