Bill Hurlburt Family rates Enderlin A+ place to live
Editor’s note: Bill Hurlburt gave a talk at the Enderlin Lions Club meeting, telling why his family decided to relocate to Enderlin... this is his story.
William Hurlburt and his wife Sonja and their three boys, moved to Enderlin last year after investigating many other places, finding that Enderlin has it all.... incredible safety, high-rated school, affordable housing, recreation, friendly people, and a business community that works for a family.
Hurlburt, who is a software developer, owns his own company, Hurlburt and Associates. He writes database applications that can be web-based, using a standard windows program. He writes or enhances programs that process orders, perform bank processing and ship orders. Through the use of Microsoft Window tools, he can just as easily work at home on his personal computer (PC) as he could in an office in a big city. The DSL service offered by Moore & Liberty Telephone is really good and reliable, says Hurlburt.
Asked why he and the family chose Enderlin, their answer is “Enderlin is the best value in the country”.
“I am a research nut and I looked all over the country. We found from our research that:
Enderlin Schools: Third grade standardized testing in 2005 showed Enderlin in the 86 percentile, while the same test in Nevada, where they lived prior to coming to Enderlin, was in the 52 percentile.
Safety: Statistics show that Enderlin is incredibly safe compared to the rest of the country.
Housing: An average house in western USA is $240,000; in Enderlin an average house is roughly ten percent of the above amount.
Recreation: We’ve found that the golf course is pretty amazing for the size of the town; the pool is a big hit with the family; we have great baseball teams; we’ve been sledding on the area hills; and hunting ‘is off the charts’.
The people: “My wife is from Minnesota, so was familiar with the “Minnesota Nice” phenomena, but the people here are just as nice, if not nicer.... and a bit more self-reliant.
Car Insurance: the cost of car insurance, compared with Nevada, is one-third the cost. “This speaks volumes”, said Hurlburt, “about the conduct of the average North Dakota driver”.
Opinions: “We are constantly shocked at how much better an opinion the average person has than what we experienced in California and Nevada. Help in the stores is amazing, and you get these really well-reasoned opinions from the average person.”
Longevity: People live longer in this area than in the entire USA. And, it is not correlated to income.
Charity: “People here don’t talk about giving, they just do it. In California, people talk about it, then don’t. This was a study on 20/20, said Hurlburt.
Town Infrastructure: It’s got what we need.... the library, grocery store, hardware store, lumber yard, pharmacy, great doctor, and the MEAT from Maple Valley Meats is some of the best meat I have ever had in my life. “I am eating better meat than a stockbroker in New York City that has unlimited money!”
Weather: “This was an assumed giant negative, but even this has turned into a positive for me”, said Bill. “I like the extremes....hottest and coldest I have ever been in in the same place.”
Bill continued concerning the weather, “Generally speaking the weather here can kill you, so it sharpens the brain and makes planning mandatory. It also makes you feel alive and prevents you from taking anything for granted. If the cold isn’t trying to get you in the winter, the tornadoes are in the summer. It really does create the right mindset, where nothing is taken for granted.”
Bill’s thoughts of North Dakota’s and Enderlin’s future: “I have read extensively and believe there will be a pretty serious energy crisis in the relatively near future. Why I believe it is a sure thing is the advent of horizontal drilling in the 80’s led everyone to believe there was more oil. There wasn’t, we just pulled it out of the ground faster. This, said Bill, will be a very large surprise as time goes on and I think Saudi Arabia has much less oil than people think, with decline rates in Mexico and around the world.”
Bill continued, “In that scenario, North Dakota should thrive: It (North Dakota) has coal reserves; wind potential, some oil, ethanol, bio diesel is a boon for agriculture, North Dakota has to be one of the most blessed and diversified states in the Union, and generally rail, which Enderlin has, does very well in an energy crisis because it is way more cost effective than trucking.
“Another trend will help Enderlin,” said Bill. “If the price of gas goes up violently, more office workers will be allowed to work from home. If that happens, more people will conclude, as I did, that if you can work from anywhere, why not live where it is inexpensive, safe, nice people, and the list goes on and on.”