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Hi Cookeville Residents! Like many other families we are searching for the perfect place to raise our family, expand our businesses and eventually retire and enjoy our future grandchildren. We have lived in Riverview, Florida (suburb of Tampa) for the past 12 years. Let me say that we haven't enjoyed it very much. We don't really like the beach, fire ants, alligators, sharks or the blistering hot humid weather that lasts way too long. We also don't like the hustle and bustle of living in a rather large metroplex. We do not like the inner city problems that are rapidly spreading to our once tranquil and what used to be a little bit out in the country suburb. There is now over a 100,000 people in a 10 mile radius. Terrible really. My husband and I are able to work from home, which allows us the ability to relocate to anywhere that has good internet services. We hope to expand our businesses once we get settled in somewhere and be able to offer back jobs and income to the community. We have checked out Cookeville as best we can through the chamber and internet sources. My father has a houseboat on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky that he basically lives at during the summer. When we go visit in the summers we always stay overnight in Chattanooga. We love the landscape of Tennessee. It's breathtakingly beautiful with it's rolling hills and mountains. We have so much fun in the summers swimming in Lake Cumberland. You can't believe what a relief it is to not worry about the sharks and alligators. We can not enjoy the water activities here at all. The river's are so polluted by overpopulation that you can't eat the fish you catch. At least I won't let my family eat them. My husband grew up in a small town in Oklahoma on a cattle ranch and he doesn't like it here in our huge subdivision in our cookie cutter house on our postage stamp size lot. He's a country boy at heart and fell in love with the lakes and hills in Tennessee and can't wait to go fishing with our two teenage boys (13 & 14). Our daughter (21) is in her last 2 years of college here earning her R.N. degree. She will be joining us where ever we end up once she finishes school. After looking for a long long time now we feel that Cookeville is the perfect town for us. Please let me know if our assessment is wrong, but it seems that Cookeville has a small to mid size town feel with many of the conveniences of a much larger city. One of my main concerns is relocating my 14 year old. He is a very kind, nice and well liked young man. He is going to miss his friends. But he doesn't like a lot of the things about Florida I mentioned earlier either. He loves visiting Tennessee and would in his own words love to take all his friends and family and relocate them and their families with us to Tennessee. Of course that isn't an option. But we feel very strongly that Florida is not the place we want to live the rest our lives in. In that light we feel the sooner we move the better. Our 13 year old can't wait to move to Tennessee, he is more of a loner and would rather be fishing or hunting or just hanging out as long as we are all together. Our older son will be starting 10th grade and we realize the older you get the harder to make friends. Our thoughts are that it would be better to move now so that he can form new friendships that will follow him into college and his adult life rather than waiting til he graduates and starting new then. My hope is that it will be easier to make friends in Cookeville Highschool vs say a high school in a larger city such as Nashville etc...He is your typical teenage boy (plays guitar, xbox games, loves fishing, hanging out with his buddies and of course discovering girls). I know it will be an adjustment for all of us. But I feel this is the right thing for us to do. We hope that Cookeville will be all that we think it is. It seems to welcome newcomers more openly than other towns of it's size. You know what I mean when I say some towns just don't like outsiders moving in and some feel their jobs are threatened and in general just don't like things changing in anyway. I'm hoping that we can discover more about Cookeville when we come up on spring break in April. I've written to the chamber and checked out many of the business, demographics, other statistics, etc... and all looks wonderful. Please let me know any and all info that may be helpful. But the most help to me at this point would to be to talk to as many people as I can that live there to get a feel for the mood of the area. Thank you very much.
I have lived in Cookeville since 2001. After I met my husband I moved to Bloomington Springs (still in Putnam County). My oldest son graduated from Cookeville High and my youngest from Upperman High School. Both are excellent schools. My advise would be for you to check out each school. Upperman is a smaller High School in Baxter just 6 miles west of Cookeville in Putnam County.
Dear Bones, Thank you for your response. I agree the younger the better. I actually hate the fact that we are moving in my son's high school years. We actually tried to sell our house a couple of years ago and move that way. But the housing market is worse than terrible here. We were not in the position then that we are now. What I mean by that is, even though the seller's market here is awful we are in a better financial position to take a hit on our house. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and push forward. But anyway on a happier note, It sounds like your happy you moved up that way. I'm glad to hear that a fellow Floridian has survived the move to the less warm but more beautiful state. Thanks again for your input and I look forward to talking again. Keep Warm & Safe.
Dear DM1970, Thank you for your response. We actually did check out on line Upperman High school. It was quite impressive. That is actually an area we found some promising houses in. We watched some Youtube videos that the kids at Cookeville HS had put up. They seemed to be a nice group of friendly innocent kids. The schools here have become almost dangerous to attend. We are starting to see the development of Gangs and their activities. The area we live in was considered one of the better school districts just a few years ago. Things here are falling fast. It seems to have declined sharply this past year. We should have left a couple of years ago but were not in the position to. However better late than never. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that the Upperland high school is growing by leaps and bounds given it's location and it's reputation. I know that with most cities there seems to be a direction of growth. Is Cookeville sprawling towards Baxter or more towards Algood? Thank you again for your reply and advice. I look forward to talking with you again. Keep Warm & Safe
Pelder, I'm also a Florida refugee! Fifth generation Floridian here, native of the Tampa area (Brandon). My grandfather was one of the original developers of Brandon back in the 1950s.
I'm in Knoxville now but think Cookeville is a fantastic place. It's very much as you described: a small town that has most of the amenities you'd find in a larger town (shopping, restaurants, etc.). I'm trying to find a job in Cookeville so I can move there, too.
One thing to keep in mind is that your son can go to any high school in Putnam County he wants to, as long as you provide the transportation. So even if you live in the Baxter area he can go to Cookeville High. Or you could live in the Cookeville area and he could go to Upperman in Baxter. There's also Monterey High in the eastern end of Putnam County which is smaller than Upperman. Monterey is much more mountainous and hasn't grown as much as the rest of Putnam County.
Cookeville High is one of only a small handful of high schools in Tennessee with the International Baccalaureate Program. CHS also offers over 20 AP classes. Upperman is also an excellent school but is much smaller and, therefore, doesn't quite offer as many academic options as CHS. CHS has over 2300 students, Upperman has just under 700. Monterey has about 400. Your son might want to visit all 3 high schools just to see which one feels right to him.
The growth in Putnam County is a very stable, healthy growth, nothing like the go-go growth that has ruined much of Florida. Putnam County is able to build new schools to keep up with the growth, and the school facilities are excellent; you won't find any portable classrooms in Putnam County.
Algood is growing faster than Baxter, but western Putnam County is becoming more and more popular because it's closer to the Nashville airport. I know of a couple of flight attendants who live in western Putnam County and have an easy commute to the Nashville airport.
Dear JMT, Thank you for your reply. I'm getting more and more excited about going as the replies I'm getting to my post have been so welcoming and positive. We have been looking really hard at Cookeville for the last few months now and really like what we have seen and heard so far. Brandon is only 6 miles from Riverview. I don't know when the last time you were back in this area, but I have to tell you, it isn't what it used to be. I mostly grew up in Ocala and Tampa. When I was just a young kid, most of Brandon was just a big cow pasture (we considered it the boonies) If you haven't been back here in the last 10 years you wouldn't believe it! During the housing boom of 2005 development went insane. 2000 ft. track houses on less than a quarter acre lot were selling for $300,000.00+. Insane! We should of sold then. But the Boom became a Bust very quickly as everyone is aware. And now well...We will be happy just to break even on our house. But that's Ok I'm looking forward to the future in a beautiful new place. I think Cookeville has a lot to offer our family and we are looking forward to getting there as soon as school is out here. Thanks again for the information and encouragement. Hopefully you find work in Cookeville, Good Luck and who knows, we might be neighbors one day.
Pelder, we seem to have many things in common. My wife and I just relocated to Cookeville from Waukegan, Il in the last 6 months. We picked this tiime to move because our kids are now 13 & 14, a current 7th and 9th grader, and it seemed like the ideal time to move them. They have both adapted very well here. It doesn't hurt that we were very familiar with the area, having come here since 1996 every year on vacation and buying a condo at nearby Fairfield Glade in 2001. But, schools are what made us choose Cookeville, abnd for the most part, it has been an excellent change. Still trying to adapt on how easily the cancel school for weather here, but the schools themselve are excellent. My wofe has a home based business and I now have had 3 interview with a company and hope to be starting a new career here shortly. We have a house in Il that has not sold as of yet and need to sell that in order to purchase the house that we are renting here, but we love it's location and plan on being here for quite awhile. If you have any questions about adapting as a newcomer, please ask, I'd be happy to help in anyway I can.
Most of the previous posts have hit on what I wanted to say, but mainly I wanted to encourage you that your kids will be ok - as an Air Force brat, I was uprooted every other year growing up, and you do learn to adjust and go with the flow. It's made me very comfortable around strangers, and I make friends easily. Our high school is humongous (for a town this size -- all the high schools where I lived in CA were at least this big), and that brings the good and the bad. My son is a freshman this year and LOVES it. Last year they started a 'Freshman Academy' where the 9th graders have their own floor, separate set of teachers, and follow sort of a 'team' concept. It seems to be working really well as it gives the students the chance to acclimate to a large school without being thrown in the deep end. I have also heard great things about both the Monterey and Baxter HS.
This town is full of activities for kids to participate in from church activities to sports to theater to academics to whatever-other-random-activity your kid might be interested in (shoot, we even have our own lego league).
I've been in Cookeville since '97 when we moved here for my hubby to finish up school at Tech. I felt very welcomed as an 'outsider', and though we thought we'd move home after school, we just fell in love with it here and have made this our home.
Greetings Sparkman, Thank you for your reply. I found it very encouraging. My boys are also currently in 7th and 9th grade. We are really excited about moving up. We love outside activities and I have never seen a prettier place than Tennessee to fish and hike in. I have family in Ohio that in summers basically live at their houseboat on Lake Cumberland which is on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. It is always the highlight of the summer when we go up to visit them there. The Cookeville school sounds equivalent in size and course options to our high school here. I'm hoping that Cookeville has less of the undesirable elements such as gangs and drugs. It's becoming a bigger and bigger problem here in Florida Schools. Can you tell me what the weather is like through the year? For instance how long does the ground stay muddy for after the winter snows melt. I love to garden and would like to know what kind of things can you grow there. i.e. types of fruit trees, veggies, flowers etc... We moved to Pennsylvania (Wilkes-barre) once a long time ago. They did not have 4 different seasons. PA had only two, Winter and August. The ground didn't dry out til June. In fact we only lived there for 1 1/2 years. It was actually snowing little flurries in May while we were loading our moving truck. I don't mind the snow & cold as long as it doesn't last for half or more of the year. Just the same I don't mind it really really Hot, once again as long as it's not for most the year. Where we live now we have two seasons also, Summer and January. Well the more and more people I talk to from Cookeville the more confident and excited I feel about making it our new and hopefully final home. Thank you again for your information and Good luck with your career. Hopefully soon we will be fellow Cookeville residents.
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But the Boom became a Bust very quickly as everyone is aware. And now well...We will be happy just to break even on our house. But that's Ok I'm looking forward to the future in a beautiful new place. I think Cookeville has a lot to offer our family and we are looking forward to getting there as soon as school is out here. Thanks again for the information and encouragement. Hopefully you find work in Cookeville, Good Luck and who knows, we might be neighbors one day.
