Is Versailles, IN a nice place to raise a family? (Milan: low crime, home)

[spedteach]

My husband is seriously considering a career change and we are looking into moving to Versailles or the surrounding area. We have two sons who are 12 and 10, so good schools are important to us. My boys also like to play sports.

I teach special education and I will need to find a job as well. How is the area?

Thanks for your help!

[CaraRandall]

I'm not sure where you are coming from, but Versailles can be an okay place to live. It has the Versailles Pumpkin Show in the fall, a nice Dairy Queen, a couple of discount stores, McDonalds...errr, that's about it. I like the park particularly well. But I can't imagine why anyone would want to come to Ripley County, actually, unless they were retiring and didn't need to worry about work. Most people travel an hour or more to find decent jobs, as Ripley County is one of the poorest counties in Indiana. I have lived here for most of my life, and my husband and I built a home just outside of Milan (about fifteen minutes from Versailles) on five acres of my Grandfather's farm. I enjoy, and always have enjoyed, living in the country, but even I am getting sick of having to drive to Cincy for decent opportunities or entertainment.

I'm also not sure how hard it is to break into teaching in this area. There are a lot of schools, and really I've always been of the opinion that if you are determined to get an education, you will get an education. Are the schools great? Not really. They rank among the lower achievers in the state. I'm not going to sugar coat this area. It has good community that I enjoy, nice small-town flavor, if you like living in the country it's nice and peaceful. Low crime rates, I think there are some petty burglaries and the like in Versailles, but not much else. But frankly, there is not much happening in Ripley County. There are a lot of sad, rundown properties that have been abandoned and left to rot here and there, there are not a lot of job opportunities, not a lot of entertainment.

But it purely depends on what you are looking for. If you like a small town with a very slow pace, then it might be your thing. Versailles has nothing going on during the weekends, other than perhaps bowling and people getting drunk and driving around the courthouse square over and over to scope out chicks. There are always chicken fry dinners going on at the local churches, the Friendship Fleamarket in June and Sept, which is a huge fleamarket centered around the banks of Laughery Creek during the Muzzleloader Shoot (lots of pioneer reenactment stuff, really neat to go to-my fave thing in this area all year).

Gosh, I don't know what else to tell you. I guess I'm not very positive about it, but it truly is a very poor county and I can't imagine anyone deliberately coming here and expecting much. When the most active spots in your town are the Dairy Queen, the Family Dollar, and the funeral parlor, you know your town is pretty goofy. Milan isn't any more interesting...in fact it's not as interesting as Versailles. All Milan thinks about is that they won the 1954 basketball championship, so, hey, what else do they have to do?

People are friendlier here, more interested in community, and I like that. They are more interested in other people. I like farming and I like being left alone, so it's a good area for those things. I like people you can count on, and country people are good for that. I'm trying to present the good and the bad. There are a lot of sports in the schools, and so your children would probably be happy with that. It's hard for me to guess what it is you hope to find here, but I wish you all the luck and happiness I can wish. These are just my opinions, and you'll have to form your own.

Blessings,
Cara