Good Place to Raise Your Children, but.....
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11/19/2010
Our family has lived in Worland almost five years and we moved here because of a job transfer. Worland is a great place to live in many respects with both of our daughters having attended High School here, the oldest having graduated last May and the younger now a HS Junior.
The school system is good with many dedicated teachers, but also a few who should be in a different profession. With it being a small school (about 100 in my oldest daughter's graduating class) your kids get lots of opportunities to participate on athletic teams (if they have at least average athletic ability), not just sit on the bench.
The weather overall is pretty good except there are usually about 10-15 days each summer when it's way too hot 100+ (but very low humidity) and 10-15 days each winter where it's way too cold (over night lows of -20 to -40). On the other hand we have little moisture with lots of sunny days, even in the winter.
I have two main complaints with Worland- one is there are lot of days when there are foul odors in the area from either the sugar beet plant (which is located in the southwest part of town, very close to some neighborhoods and the softball fields), or from the cattle feed lot just east of town, or from the Natural Gas processing plant a couple miles east of town, which includes H2S (hydrogen sulfide) which is lethal (almost as deadly as cyanide gas used for admnistering the death penalty in some states) in high enough concentrations. My second complaint is that it is a long ways (90 miles) to the nearest towns with very much store availability such as a Wal Mart.
Which leads me to my final comment. Enough of the area residents (for many this is the only place they have lived) like things the way they are and DON't want the area to grow in population, which is reflected by the -6% growth rate by your website's statistics. Many businesses have closed since we've moved here and very few new ones have opened. Other than oil and gas the other major economic base is farming and ranching. There is a lot of barley raised in this county, which is used for brewing beer and bought by Coors and Budweiser. About 15 years ago "those in charge" were approached by Budweiser who wanted to locate their new brewery here. That brewery was built just north Fort Collins Colorado instead (where we lived from 1999 to 2002) because "those in power" in Washakie County didn't want the "image" of a brewery in the area, although it's okay to raise the barley and sell it to the brewery as long as it's brewed somewhere else! Those same kind of decisions continue to be made which is why Worland is somewhat in decline. Five years ago (a month after we moved here) the front page story in the local paper was that Wal Mart was going to build a store here. Wal Mart bought a farm field on the east edge of town that has now just sat and grown weeds the past 3 or 4 summers, and no one talks about Wal Mart coming here any more. The local businesses didn't want Wal Mart so it didn't happen, even though many of those businesses would have benefitted with an increase in business as Wal Mart would have drawn customers from Thermopolis 30 miles south and Basin and Greybull (30 and 40 miles north). Worland has had a Pamida store for many years (a Discount store you find in small towns not big enough to support a Wal Mart etc.). But when Wal Mart ran into problems getting approval to build in Worland the Pamida Discount Chain promptly built 2 brand new stores in Thermopolis and Greybull (both towns smaller than Worland), which pretty much ensures Wal Mart will not build in Worland any time soon, since with the 2 new Pamida's there is even less chance Worland could support a Wal Mart. I've lived in16 different These are the ONLY two brand new buildings I have ever seen constructed by Pamida!
One of your other commenters mentioned they wouldn't pick Worland as a retirement location and I totally agree. I can retire in June, but plan to work 4 more years, and if my wife and I are still here in 4 years we will retire elsewhere (probably in WY, Cheyenne I'm thinking) since both of our daughters have made it clear they will NEVER come back to Worland to live once they've left. I've lived in 16 different towns in 8 states (MN,ND,WI,OR,WA,NV,CO AND WY) and I like WY better than all of them except Oregon, but I wouldn't retire in Oregon due to the high state income tax, whereas WY has no state income tax.
don | Worland, WY