Raising tweens/teens in Park City as a non-mormon

[FLRich]

Well we will find out soon enough. We depart on the 17th and will be there for 7 days. Sadly not enough time but the wife is at a new job and my oldest son who is working the summer for the local school board want's to get back for more hours before he leaves for UCF Orlando on the 12th of August. Orlando is an 8hr drive from us but he was born in Florida and he is part of the prepaid college fund there. Way we look at it an 8hr drive or a 4-5 hour flight is about the same so it really does not matter much where we live. He may also do the AFROTC so once he graduates he would not be coming home so our main concern is our 10yo son. We plan on dividing up our time around SLC, St George and were thinking of visiting Vegas for the first time but have changed that to Flagstaff. A job posting just closed today in my company for my current position in Flagstaff, we have driven past it on the interstate last year but never visited. It's still a rather short drive to St. George and Moab from there so it's another relocation option. Since we will be somewhat nearby we need to check it out, postings often do not get filled out since the qualifications are a bit intensive both in education and workloads, in 20 years I have also seen it happen very often that someone will take the job then a year later quit since it's not a good fit so I got to be ready if that happens.

[rurhist]

Another "diverse" area of Utah for families to consider, that doesn't get mentioned much is the Helper/Price area in Carbon County. Some commute to Utah County from Carbon County, but it's an awful drive. However, if you can get a job here, the housing is cheap. For background, I'm from SLC & the predominant religion, and my hubby is from New Jersey, raised Catholic, but became Mormon when we lived in Fairbanks, Alaska. However, we are "liberal" Mormons, and have not been active for several years.

Our youngest child was less than 2 years old when we moved from Pennsylvania to Alaska. We loved it there but decided to move back to the Lower 48 to be closer to family (especially my dad in SLC, who was the last living parent). We researched where we wanted to live and knew we wanted to be within a day's drive of SLC. Spent 18 months planning and searching, concentrating on southern Utah, eastern Nevada, northern Arizona, and even eastern California. We finally decided to move to Helper (which wasn't in our thoughts at all until the last 3 months of our search) and with our savings buy a small house and then hoped we could get a job. We arrived in Helper the day before our youngest daughter started 6th grade at Helper Middle School. She was 11 years old.

She loved Fairbanks, loved the cold and snow and was absolutely against moving to Utah. We were very nervous about her first day, since she hadn't had a chance to get to know any kids over the summer, but tried not to show it. When asked how her first day of middle school went, she said it was "awesome!" She got friends right off the bat and is now a freshman at the local high school in Price, where she is heavily involved in clubs and activities, including LGBTQ club. My husband and I are no longer "active" LDS, even though our daughter goes to weekly Young Women events, but we haven't been to church in years. She gets no guff about it, and the people have been nice and friendly. Her friends are a mix of LDS and other religious or non-religious backgrounds (frankly I don't know about the religious affiliations of her friends, except for the LDS ones).

Why Helper? Historically a mining town, so more diverse (religiously) than other areas of Utah. Even with the mine shutdowns, the mentality of welcoming all and expecting to encounter people from different backgrounds still exists. Helper/Price is not perfect, by any means, but it's one of the few small towns in Utah where my Alaskan tween fit right in. My hubby got a job within 3 weeks at the local college and because the price of living was so low, I was able to be a stay-at-home mom for two glorious years and could visit my Dad, my sister's family, and my oldest daughter in SLC on a regular basis. I also started working full-time for the college about a year ago.

So, if you want to live in a small town in Utah that is more religiously diverse (at least in terms of Christian faiths, i.e., Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, mainline Protestant, evangelical Christian, etc.), then Helper/Price would be a consideration.

I don't have first-hand knowledge of this, but I understand Moab, Roosevelt, and Vernal are also more diverse in terms of Utah small towns (Roosevelt/Vernal because of the oil/gas companies who brought non-Utahns into town; and Moab because its hip tourism vibe and remaining mines).