I have the chance to move to Sublette (Wichita, Garden City: to rent, crime)

[webba]

Hi! I have the chance to move to the Sublette, Kansas area for a job. I'm apprehensive, because I live about 2000 miles away, so it's not as if I can just drive over and see if I like the area or not. I can and have looked online, both at schools and the area as a whole.

My family is very quiet. We like to go to church, spend time together as a family, go to minor league baseball games and occasionally to a large city for more cultural events. My children are 11, 9 and almost 2.

Is the Sublette area fairly safe for kids? How are the schools? Is it going to be easy to find a place to rent, or should I buy? What about surrounding towns, such as Meade or Plains or Satanta? Is there anyplace I should NOT go?

I need some good, honest opinions. I don't want to move halfway across the country for a huge disappointment. My current town has 5000 people and the nearest city is 120 miles away and boasts 40K.

[thriftylefty]

These are very quiet farm towns, last time I think it was there it was forty miles to McDonald's. There is probably a large Hispanic population in part due to its proximity to the historic Sante Fe trail and many of the large farms and beef industry employ them. You might be a good fit if you live around large scale farming. I once heard a guy refer to 5000 acres as a small farm out there. I think you will find the people out there of a superior quality. I would guess crime might be virtually non existent and your big city is Amarillo TX

[GraniteStater]

Sublette- Haskell County, KS

Closest City- Garden City 30K.

Employment diversity- schools, hospital, RR, commercial agriculture

Climate- Extreme. High winds, high heat, meager rainfall, If you are coming from the Eastern US this will be the hardest adjustment without a doubt.

Culture- Very Southwestern/Western with a STRONG Texas influence. The SW part of the state is not Midwestern at all IMO, but has far more similarities with the above mentioned influences. This part of the state and portions of the High Plains region has a lot of commercial agriculture: which includes mega dairy farms, huge ranches, huge amount of irrigated acres of corn, packing plants, slaughterhouses, processing centers, etc. The economies and culture of Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal all somewhat revolve around commercial subsidized ag jobs.

[empires228]

Driving though Sublette it has always seemed like a nice town. Defiantly not one of the small rural towns that have given up. I haven't heard anything good about the High School though. I always hear about problems with cheating in sports and activities down there. So for schools I would consider Satanta, the next town to the west that you can see from Sublette on a clear day.

You are also about half way between Garden City and Liberal (around 30 mins to each I think) with the advantages of both such as Gardens Walmart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Zoo, restaurants (Ihop, Applebees, Fast Food, Authentic Mexican and more), and other things. I always see people in Sublette shirts up in Garden City.

Liberal has uh well I really can't think of anything that Liberal offers that Garden doesn't.

Also not that far away is Dodge City Kansas which offers a Hobby Lobby if your into that kind of stuff and a casino that several people I know wouldn't recommend but that's their opinion.

Living in Sublette you are about 4 hours away from Amarillo Texas, Wichita Kansas, and Pueblo Colorado all of which offer many entertainment and shopping options.

Plains is also a good town. They were once featured in ripleys believe it or not because of their wide main street. They also have a good school district and their High School, South Western Heights, a consolidated district of Plains and Kismet, seem to be great at everything from Basket Ball to Band.

Basically I don't think there are any towns in the area you should stay away from unless they are like Kismet and Deerfield and are about to bite the dust as an excuse for a populated place.

[BuckeyeBroad]

Never heard of Sublette. But, man, I'm tellin' ya, I would not move to Dodge. My parents are Kansans, but I've lived all over, mainly on the East Coast. Been through Dodge a few times, didn't stop unless I had to pee real bad. Now living in West Texas temporarily. I HATE IT. That's me, of course. The landscape is featureless, the wind blows all the time, it's not as humid as the mid-Atlantic, but it's not always that dry, either -- and it gets hot. The people are southern nice -- that is nice to your face and vicious behind your back. Kansas is like that in places, too, and so don't move out there without knowing where you're going. I wish I could be more encouraging about it. Also -- lest I leave the impression I don't like Kansas --- au contraire -- I do like Kansas and Kansans in general and am moving to KCK at the end of July.

[webba]

Hmmmm...everything everyone's said has been really helpful. I've done a lot of online researching and knew I wouldn't set foot in Dodge unless I had a gun to my head. Garden City didn't look so bad, though. I really like the smaller town living, and by that I'm talking 5K or less.

I would be teaching band in Sublette's middle/high school.

I'm not sure I'd like the extremes in weather, but I did check out Plains and it looked like a really nice town.

It's hard to think about moving so far across the country and not really know what I am getting into, though. Online research only does so much.

I guess a large determining factor would be whether or not my husband can get a job. He has managed Perkins restaurants and Tim Hortons (which is similar to Krispy Kreme).

[thriftylefty]

Originally Posted by webba

Hmmmm...everything everyone's said has been really helpful. I've done a lot of online researching and knew I wouldn't set foot in Dodge unless I had a gun to my head. Garden City didn't look so bad, though. I really like the smaller town living, and by that I'm talking 5K or less.

I would be teaching band in Sublette's middle/high school.

I'm not sure I'd like the extremes in weather, but I did check out Plains and it looked like a really nice town.

It's hard to think about moving so far across the country and not really know what I am getting into, though. Online research only does so much.

I guess a large determining factor would be whether or not my husband can get a job. He has managed Perkins restaurants and Tim Hortons (which is similar to Krispy Kreme).

KEEB - Search Job Postions and Postings (http://www.kansasteachingjobs.com/search_postings.cfm?sortby=JobPostedDate&dir=DESC& SearchPositions=true&startrow=1&category=15&region =0&StartMonth=0&startday=0&startyear=0&keyword=&En dMonth=0&Endday=0&Endyear=0 - broken link)


Here is a link to the KEEB Job board , if you haven't seen it already Kansas has quite a few music teacher jobs available, IMO, this is the most I've seen in many years, Might be more restaurant opportunities in bigger cities.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by webba

Hmmmm...everything everyone's said has been really helpful. I've done a lot of online researching and knew I wouldn't set foot in Dodge unless I had a gun to my head. Garden City didn't look so bad, though. I really like the smaller town living, and by that I'm talking 5K or less.

I would be teaching band in Sublette's middle/high school.

I'm not sure I'd like the extremes in weather, but I did check out Plains and it looked like a really nice town.

It's hard to think about moving so far across the country and not really know what I am getting into, though. Online research only does so much.

I guess a large determining factor would be whether or not my husband can get a job. He has managed Perkins restaurants and Tim Hortons (which is similar to Krispy Kreme).

Band director? I'm guessing that means their previous evil senile one finally retired?!

The weather is not that bad you get used to it as well as the wind. In fact last time I was in Denver it was windier there then it was back here.

As I said plains is also a nice town with a very good school. South Western Heights pretty much dominates the other rural schools in almost everything.

I would stay as far away from Ulysses as possible. I don't even know what to say about it its just a sad place. They are in denial about getting a wal-mart and have been relying on one to be built for along time now (but they were trying to be greedy and get a full size super center so I think Wal-Mart got it self out of that mess) and the schools fail at activities for about 10 years now.

Ive known a lot of people in the area who live in one town for the schools and commute to other towns for work. A lot of people who work in Garden City Live in Holcomb, Deerfield, or Lakin and Ive known people in Garden City who travel to Lakin or even Sublette and Satanta every day for work.

Hugaton is another really nice area town. Good schools and almost no crime haven't been though in years but I remember it being a fairly nice looking place.

Dodge City is not as bad as people will tell you but its by no means a nice place either. The Casino brought in problems of its own as well as the benefits. Boot Hill is the lousiest tourist trap ever.

Liberal gets a really bad rep but its not bad at all just the most boring of the 3. Don't recommend the OZ museum but do recommend the water park and a restaurant called The Pancake House on pancake BLVD. Liberal is the pancake capital of the world... or something like that

Garden City has similar problems to the other too but the police here realized it a little earlier and have a slightly better control. It also has a larger section of nicer neighborhoods from the 80's and 90's and 2002 eras.

For your husband commuting to Garden or Liberal or Dodge would be his best bet but I don't know what is available. All 3 have several fast food joints but not very many sit down chain restaurants, mostly local Mexican food or Chinese Buffets.

Dodge has Applebee's and Montana Mikes (in my opinion the nastiest place ever)

Liberal has Applebee's.

Garden City has Applebee's Lone Star Steak House, Golden Corral, and IHOP.