Tell me everything about brookings! (Sioux Falls, Rapid City: employment, college, subdivisions)

[LoneWolf88]

I am moving to Brookings hopefully within the next few months, i have searched all the threads and really can not find much on the town. Is there anything anyone call tell me about it? Does anyone live there or near it? Anything is helpful. A friend says that jobs are plentiful in south dakota so that is a big part of a reason i am leaving Georgia for SD. Is this true or is it just as bad there as it is every where else?

[Jammie]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf88

I am moving to Brookings hopefully within the next few months, i have searched all the threads and really can not find much on the town. Is there anything anyone call tell me about it? Does anyone live there or near it? Anything is helpful. A friend says that jobs are plentiful in south dakota so that is a big part of a reason i am leaving Georgia for SD. Is this true or is it just as bad there as it is every where else?

I've been to Brookings, but really can't tell you much about it except that it's a college town. It's a nice town and it's clean.

I did want to reply about our employment situation though. We're doing much better then a lot of parts of the country. (Thankfully~at least the whole nation hasn't sunk) I believe our unemployment rate is in the area of 5% right now~4.9% (?) may have been the last report. But remember, that's up from under 3% . I believe that Sx. Falls used to be something like 2.3% so we have suffered a bit of downsliding.

What made you choose Brookings? Do you have a job prospect there? If there's no specific reason, you may want to look at Sioux Falls or Rapid City. Your chances of finding employment in those cities would probably be better.

[MJ1986]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf88

I am moving to Brookings hopefully within the next few months, i have searched all the threads and really can not find much on the town. Is there anything anyone call tell me about it? Does anyone live there or near it? Anything is helpful. A friend says that jobs are plentiful in south dakota so that is a big part of a reason i am leaving Georgia for SD. Is this true or is it just as bad there as it is every where else?

Brookings has a population of 19,000. It's a small, clean, college town.
It's about 45 minutes from Sioux Falls, the state's largest city.

There are jobs here, but you may want to look at Sioux Falls too, or Rapid City. You will have better chances of finding employment, like Jammie said.

[LoneWolf88]

Yeah i chose brookings, because im pretty much coming with nothing. A friend is letting me stay with him and his wife while i look for work there. I have a CDL class b so i can drive dump trucks,cement trucks etc but have no experience doing so bc noone will hire me bc i have no experience lol...hopefully ill find something in one of those towns. Thanks for the info yall did provide...

[Jammie]

Good luck to you and let us know how you turn out.

So if you have a CDL, you'd qualify for driving semi, correct? Check out the online Mitchell Daily Republic. I frequently see an ad where someone is looking for truck drivers. Can't remember if it's a display ad or a classified because I don't think the display ads show up online. If it's in tomorrow's newspaper, I'll post the phone number.

[LoneWolf88]

I cant drive a semi because i dont have my class a but yeah i could get it, actually thought about getting it,seems to help.

[eric#1]

I used to live in Brookings. Very nice town lots of trees cooold in the winter. I am assuming the rock quarry is still there. 3M, Daktronics, and Larson windows are 3 of the larger employers, there is also a large industrial fan production oufit. I am not sure if the trucking for these businesses is done in house, but they would be a place to start looking. As far as eastern SD goes Brookings is in my opinion the prettiest and best kept. The SDSU campus has a lot of nice open green space. The parks are great. As others have said Sioux Falls may be an option as well - it's a little to big for my taste though.

[stockwiz]

Nice town, virtually no crime, lots of trees, pretty, one of the cool spots of the state, one of the areas of the state that gets the most rainfall.. between brookings and watertown gets hit more often then other areas at least I've noticed that the time I've been here, and of course further east, but not much severe weather compared to areas west and south which is arguably good.

They've made real strides the past few years trying to renovate the town.. new subdivisions are going on, new trees being planted, new businesses coming in such as a new zesto fast food place, a jewelry store, quiznos, qdoba mexican grille, etc.

I won't leave this area as I work at 3M. There shouldn't be a problem finding a job somewhere. In fact you could probably get into 3M full time if you're willing to start there as manpower... there should be openings in the next few months.

I like the direction they are taking the town, though they've still got work to do. Easy drive to sioux falls and watertown being on the interstate too if you get bored.

If you like to drink you should fit right in, plenty of good drinking. Needs more places to dine out though. They are doing good trying to add parks, have a nice jogging and bike path, golf course.... super wal-mart, lowes, hy-vee are the 3 main stores... also lewis, runnings, ace hardware.

[LoneWolf88]

Thank you for the awesome info! Sounds like a great place to raise a family. I have 2 kids 2.5 and 4 months that hopefully will be living with me half the year. Sounds awesome really cant wait to get out there....

[DeadwoodJ]

I work for Daktronics and they outsource their shipping and they are not hiring anyone, haven't been for awhile.