West Central Conference (Iowa)

The West Central Conference is a high school athletic conference made up of 1A and 2A schools in West Central Iowa. Currently there are ten schools in the league.

Members

Institution	Location	Mascot	Affiliation	2012-2013 9-11 Enrollment^[1]
Des Moines Christian	Des Moines	Lions	Private	177
Earlham	Earlham	Cardinals	Public	142
Guthrie Center	Guthrie Center	Tigers	Public	121
Madrid	Madrid	Tigers	Public	158
Ogden	Ogden	Bulldogs	Public	170
Panorama	Panora	Panthers	Public	195
Van Meter	Van Meter	Bulldogs	Public	165
West Central Valley	Stuart	Wildcats	Public	214
Woodward-Granger	Woodward	Hawks	Public	158
Woodward Academy	Woodward	Knights	Male Residential Facility	207

History

The current West Central Conference was formed in 1981 with eight members: Van Meter, Guthrie Center, Panora-Linden, Earlham, Martensdale-St. Mary's, Stuart-Menlo, Adair-Casey and Dexfield (Redfield). Prior to this time a different league known as the West Central Conference existed, but none of its members were founders of the new West Central Conference.

Throughout the 1980s, the league added Coon Rapids-Bayard and Nodaway Valley, and Panora-Linden began sharing with Y-J-B under the name Panorama. Dexfield and Stuart-Menlo also consolidated and left the league. In 1996, the league split in half as the four southernmost schools-along or south of Interstate 80-departed to conferences south and west: Martensdale-St. Mary's and Nodaway Valley to the Pride of Iowa and Earlham and Adair-Casey to the Rolling Hills. The four remaining members brought in four new schools further north as replacements: Glidden-Ralston in Carroll County; East Greene (Grand Junction) and Paton-Churdan in Greene County; and Des Moines Christian in Urbandale in Polk County. In an interesting twist, two of the newcomers (East Greene and Paton-Churdan) and a forerunner school to Panorama (YJB) were members of the original West Central.

In 2000, West Central Valley (the consolidated district of former members Dexfield and Stuart-Menlo) joined the league from the Raccoon River Conference, a conference with much larger schools. In 2004, Earlham rejoined the league as its tenth team. By 2007, many of the schools in the conference were starting to grow close to 2A in size, leading to Paton-Churdan leaving the conference for the smaller Rolling Hills Conference. Madrid joined the league at this time from the Heart of Iowa Conference. In 2009, Glidden-Ralston left for the Rolling Hills, being replaced by Woodward-Granger, another Heart of Iowa Conference team. East Greene then opted to also leave the conference and join the Rolling Hills, for 2011 with Ogden, yet another former Heart of Iowa Conference member (and a member of the original West Central Conference) replacing them. Woodward Academy also joined that year for boys' sports only from the rank of the Independents of Iowa High Schools.

Coon Rapids-Bayard left West Central for the new Rolling Valley Conference in the 2013-14 school year.

Iowa High School Athletic Conferences

Current Conferences	Bluegrass CIML Corn Bowl Corner Hawkeye Ten Heart of Iowa Iowa Star Lakes Little Hawkeye Maple Valley MAC Mississippi Valley Missouri River NICL North Central North Iowa NEIC Pride of Iowa Raccoon River River Valley Rolling Valley SEISC Siouxland South Central SICL Southeast Tri-Rivers Twin Lakes Upper Iowa WaMaC War Eagle West Central Western Iowa

Former Conferences	Big East Big Eight Boyer Valley Cornbelt Northwest Rolling Hills Sioux Valley Western Valley

References

↑ "Iowa High School Athletic Association BEDS Document" (PDF). Retrieved October 7, 2013.

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