Arlington is a hidden jewel

Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.

ARLINGTON, Neb. — A quick drive around town gives you a pretty good picture of the priorities for people in Arlington, a community that's easy for outsiders to overlook between Omaha and Fremont.

In the center of town, construction is under way to renovate the local swimming pool and add one of those trendy splash playgrounds. From there, a new walking trail curves down to an expansive new ballfield complex — built entirely with donations and maintained with volunteer sweat — where Arlington's northeastern edge meets farmland.

A few blocks to the northwest, 600 children study on an Arlington Public Schools campus recently expanded and renovated with a $7.9 million bond issue, passed in the midst of a struggling economy.

Talk to a few people, and they back up this through-the-car-window conclusion: Arlington is investing in its young people, in itself and in the future, even if not many people turn off the highway long enough to notice.

Maybe that's why residents were surprised, but not shocked, when a national business magazine recently rated their hometown, population 1,243, the second best place in the United States to raise children.

"I was surprised and just pleased for our community," said Lynn Johnson, Arlington's superintendent of schools, a mother of three and a resident since 1983. "Of course, I'm raising my kids here because I already knew that, and my husband and I chose to raise our kids here."

Businessweek.com placed Arlington No. 2 in its annual Best Places to Raise Kids rankings. Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech University, was first. The Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, Ill. placed third.

The publication crunched data to come up with the rankings. It stressed low crime rates, high test scores in schools, strong family income and access to such amenities as recreation centers, museums and green space.

The communities had to be between 1,000 and 50,000 people. The magazine picked one place from each state, then chose a top 10.

Arlington apparently scored high enough in all the categories to come in second, even without factoring in its barbecued beaver.

Schoolchildren, who come from Kennard, Elk City and farms and acreages as well as Arlington, consistently score well on state assessment exams, including 100 percent writing proficiency in both eighth and 11th grades on the most recent tests.

According to Census Bureau data for 2005 to 2009, Arlington's median household income was over $60,000 (Businessweek put it at $71,000), and its unemployment rate was 5.5 percent. Twenty percent of Arlington Public Schools students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Those aren't lofty economic figures. And there is poverty in Arlington, but the bottom isn't as low as in many communities.

Arlington is in Washington County, where the annual crime rate was a low 12.5 per 1,000 people in 2009, the most recent year statistics were reported to the Nebraska Crime Commission.

As for amenities and employment, it helps that Arlington is less than 30 miles from Omaha — 23 minutes from Village Pointe, as the superintendent drives — and five miles from Fremont. It's also home to the Washington County Fair, nestled near the Elkhorn River amid good farm and hunting land.

There are a few local employers, such as Gnuse Manufacturing, which makes loader buckets and other farm equipment. A growing number of people run independent businesses on their acreages outside town.

But most people work in Omaha, Fremont or Valley, said Tom Brown, the Arlington Village Board chairman who is known familiarly as the mayor.

"You could call us a bedroom community," said Brown, who with his brother owns Bell Creek Enterprises, a livestock trucking firm started by their father.

But Arlington's a bedroom community that's wide awake.

"We've got a lot of community organizations that donate a lot of time and effort," Brown said.

Those include the Arlington Youth Foundation, the Arlington Youth Sports group, the Arlington Veterans Club, the Arlington Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department and the Lions Club. There's also a ladies' coffee klatch that raised money to help air-condition the City Auditorium and put up Christmas lights downtown.

The ladies meet at Our Place Restaurant, which draws people from the immediate area and Omaha for its prime rib (Wednesdays through Saturdays). The Arlington Veterans Club is a popular gathering spot after school sporting events and on many other occasions, such as weekly Hamburger Nights on Wednesdays, and the monthly Arlington Youth Foundation steak frys.

The town has a veterinary clinic, a heating and cooling business, an auto body shop and an equipment dealer, but not much retail business. Arlington lost its grocery store in recent years, and its hardware and drug stores before that. They couldn't compete with larger stores in Fremont and Omaha.

But the remaining businesses work with volunteers to "support community projects and the school," Brown said.

He cited the swimming pool renovation as an example. The pool, built in the 1960s, was deteriorating badly. Citizens formed a committee to raise money and support renovations. In the depths of tough economic times and government budget woes, they managed to rally support for a $400,000 bond issue last year to not only repair but improve the pool.

"Darned if they didn't get it passed," Brown said.

The Twin Rivers Youth Sports Complex of baseball and softball fields may be an even better example. Individuals, corporations and donors put together the money to install the four fields and a two-story building with a concession stand and other facilities. Each field has its own electric scoreboard and concrete-block dugouts with steel roofs.

"That's a great example of what makes this community what it is," said Brent Cudly, middle school principal. "People saw a need and did something special for the kids, for the community. They didn't really expect anybody to do anything for them. They just went out and did it."

Of course, it helps to have access to means. The ballfields appear to be an example of that, too — each field and scoreboard bear the name of a corporate or individual sponsor.

Townspeople also put in a lot of work at the ballfields, as well as other endeavors.

"People from other towns can't believe how many volunteers we have doing everything, from coaching to chalking the fields," said Bruce Scheer, a member of the Arlington Youth Foundation and other local organizations. "Arlington is a very close-knit community, where volunteers will step in and do just about everything."

Which brings us to the barbecued beaver. An Arlington native and father of a 12-year-old boy, Scheer is among the Arlington Youth Foundation members gearing up for the annual Team Hunt in early December.

The event harvests a lot of the meat that ends up on the menu for the foundation's annual Wild Game Feed, which raises about $60,000 a year, then distributes it in grants to community organizations.

Besides beaver, the menu includes pheasant Parmesan, sweet and sour duck, local rabbit and squirrel, elk from Colorado and gator nuggets from Florida. It's all donated — and most of it hunted — by people from Arlington.

"It's just a good, healthy volunteer community," Brown said. "A lot of people take time out to benefit the community. ... They just pop up and decide they're going to do something and go after it."

Contact the writer: 402-444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com

« Metro/Region

Share