River Valley Conference (Iowa)

The River Valley Conference is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in smaller communities in eastern Iowa. The conference roughly spans from the Iowa City metropolitan area to the southwest, to Bellevue in northeastern Jackson County on the northeast.

Member schools

There are 13 full members of the River Valley Conference. Each of those schools are in Class 2A, Iowa's second smallest enrollment class.

Institution Location Mascot Colors Affiliation 9-11 Enrollment (2012-2013)[1]
Bellevue Bellevue Comets           Public 173
Camanche Camanche Indians           Public 252
Durant Durant Wildcats           Public 178
Mid-Prairie Wellman Golden Hawks           Public 256
Monticello Monticello Panthers           Public 247
North Cedar Stanwood Knights           Public 204
Northeast Goose Lake Rebels           Public 248
Regina Iowa City Regals           Private 190
Tipton Tipton Tigers           Public 213
West Branch West Branch Bears           Public 191
West Liberty West Liberty Comets           Public 226
Western Dubuque Cascade Cougars           Public 191
Wilton Wilton Beavers           Public 176

Sports

The school fields athletic teams in 13 sports, including:

Although the member schools field freshman — and in some cases, junior varsity — teams in many of the above-mentioned sports, conference championships are determined at varsity levels only.

History

The River Valley Conference traces its history to 2008, when it was formed as the Cedar Valley Conference. That year, the seven original schools left the former Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference, which was dissolved. Four member schools from the old EIHC — Clear Creek-Amana, Mount Vernon, Solon and Williamsburg — were growing in size and placed in the WaMaC Conference. The seven remaining schools joined North Cedar High School, (which had been in the Big East Conference) in forming the new CVC.

Starting with the 2013-2014 school year, former Big East members Bellevue, Camanche and Northeast were placed in the CVC, along with Cascade and Monticello.[2] The events that eventually resulted in the changes began in the early 2010s, when Camanche began petitioning to leave the Big East for the CVC, and CVC member schools denied them admission, citing travel distances. The Iowa Department of Education eventually was asked to help resolve the dilemma. Not all CVC athletic directors and coaches welcomed the Iowa Department of Education's decision, expressing concerns about travel distances, loss of classroom time and gate receipts for some contests.[3]

As a result of the changes, the CVC was renamed the River Valley Conference.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Iowa High School Athletic Association BEDS Document". Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  2. ↑ Batterson, Steve (May 30, 2012). "Iowa Ruling Splits Up Big East Conference". Quad-City Times. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  3. ↑ Coss, Matt (May 29, 2012). "Conference affiliation: Cedar Valley Conference to become 13-team league". Muscatine Journal. Retrieved 2012-05-30.
  4. ↑

External links