WIC, RVC to see changes starting in 2026-27 school year
By Matt Gengler, Sports Editor
sports@missourivalleytimes.com
The winds of conference change will be evident as coaches, students, and athletes head into the new school year, as the historic Western Iowa Conference will be undergoing their first changes since the 2013-14 school year.
WHAT WE KNOW
The WIC, made up of school districts in southwest Iowa stretching from Pottawattamie, Harrison, Shelby, and Carroll counties. They include AHSTW (Avoca), Audubon, IKM-Manning, Logan-Magnolia, Missouri Valley, Riverside (Oakland), Treynor, Tri-Center (Neola) and Underwood.
TWO SCHOOLS LEAVE: At their July school board meetings, both the Audubon and IKM-Manning school districts voted to leave the WIC, and join the neighboring Rolling Valley Conference. IKM-Manning will start competing in the RVC beginning in the 2026-27 school year, with Audubon starting to compete in the 2027-28 school year.
Treynor, another long-standing conference member, has been invited to the Hawkeye-10 Conference, but no decision has been made at this time.
ONE SCHOOL JOINS: In their July school board meeting, Shenandoah accepted the Western Iowa Conference invitation, and they will also start competing during the 2027-28 school year. The Shenandoah Mustangs (boys) and Fillies (girls) were one of the original members of the Hawkeye-10 Conference.
INVITES SENT
The WIC administrators and conference officials extended invitations in late May / early June to ten high schools to join the league, and they had until August 1, 2025, to respond.
The ten schools invited to join the WIC include ACGC (Guthrie Center); Earlham; MVAOCOU (Mapleton); Nodaway Valley (Greenfield); Panorama; Red Oak; Shenandoah; Southwest Valley (Corning); West Central Valley (Stuart); and Westwood (Sloan).
Shenandoah, Red Oak, Southwest Valley and Nodaway Valley publicly confirmed receiving invites and currently evaluating the offers. The move to the WIC would affect all sports except football, which uses districts on a rotating schedule.
These invites are for all school activities, including athletics, fine arts, speech, drama, band and choir (grades 7-12). Right now, Shenandoah, Red Oak and Southwest Valley each offer bowling programs in the winter, and tennis programs in the spring.
WIC HISTORY
The most recent set of changes is the first since the 2013-14 year, when both IKM-Manning and Logan-Magnolia left the Western Valley Conference to join the southwest Iowa established WIC.
The Western Iowa Conference was organized in 1972 through the merger of the former Tri-County and Southwest Iowa Conferences. Members of the Tri-County Conference were Carson-Macedonia, Elk Horn-Kimballton, Iowa School for the Deaf, Shelby-Tennant, Treynor, Tri-Center (Neola), Underwood, and Walnut. The members of the Southwest Iowa Conference then were AvoHa (Avoca), Griswold, Missouri Valley, and Oakland.
Competition in the 12-team conference began in the summer of 1971 with baseball and softball tournaments. No regular season schedules were played during the 1971-1972 school year, but girls and boys basketball tournaments and the traditional boys wrestling tournament were held in early 1972.
Many changes have occurred since then to turn today’s WIC into a 9-team league. It remained a 12-team conference until the 1981-82 school year. At that time, Elk Horn-Kimballton and Walnut left to join the Rolling Hills Conference. Following the 1982-83 school year, Iowa Deaf dropped out making the WIC a 9-team conference.
After the 1985-86 school year, Carson-Macedonia dropped out, but would eventually join with Oakland to form Riverside. Then following the 1987-88 school year Shelby-Tennant left the league, but it would join forces with AvoHa a few years later to form what is now known as AHST.
In 1990-91 school year, Audubon joined the WIC to make it the 9-team league, before the latest shift at the start of the 2013-14 school year.
Griswold left the WIC for the Corner Conference at the start of the 2019-2020 school year.
WIC OFFICIALS MEET
“Two of the things that really started (the discussion) was some of the concerns around how do we service the students to the best of our abilities,” WIC Board of Control President Andy Irwin stated.
Irwin, who is the Underwood superintendent, cites some of the changes in the Iowa Area Education Agency (AEA), as well as invitations from the Rolling Valley Conference to WIC members Audubon and IKM-Manning.
“All of that combined really got us on a track to really look at conference expansion,” Irwin said. “Conference expansion was regardless of whether schools left. We think this is something that needs to happen.”
Irwin says there were several criteria considered by superintendents within the Western Iowa Conference when discussing conference expansion.
“We just generally took the area about an hour and 45 minutes circumference-wise in Southwest Iowa,” he said. “We pulled all of the guidance that we had made based on geography, school enrollment, activity offerings, district stability, football classification and facility availability. We just basically said, in this geographic area, who are the schools that meet that?
“This isn’t about how one school feels about one another, this is truly about what is a fit or a potential match based on this criteria that we have come up with.
When you start looking at our geographic area, and you start looking at 1A and 2A-sized schools, you tend to get a little bit limited. It was difficult to narrow down and say, we only want four or only want six. Ultimately, we felt the best thing was to put it all out there and start those discussions.”
From the invites that were sent out, Irwin says he has heard back from Hawkeye Ten Conference schools Red Oak and Shenandoah.
IKM-Manning, Audubon head to RVC
The Rolling Valley Conference was formed in the 2013-14 season, with the combination of the former Western Valley / Boyer Valley conference merger, and the former Rolling Hills Conference. The 11 original schools consisted of Adair-Casey, Ar-We-Va (Westside), Boyer Valley (Dunlap), CAM (Anita), Charter Oak-Ute, Coon Rapids-Bayard, Exira/EHK (Elk Horn), Glidden-Ralston, Paton-Churdan, West Harrison (Mondamin), and Woodbine.
A lot has changed since the formation of this league, as Adair-Casey has now merged with Guthrie Center (ACGC, West Central Activities Conference), Charter Oak-Ute is now with Maple Valley Anthon-Oto Charter Oak-Ute (MVAOCOU, Western Valley Conference).
The RVC currently consists of nine schools, including Ar-We-Va (Westside), Boyer Valley (Dunlap), CAM (Anita), Coon Rapids-Bayard, Glidden-Ralston, Exira/Elk Horn-Kimballton, Paton-Churdan, West Harrison (Mondamin) and Woodbine.
Audubon was the first to make the move in mid-July, announcing they would leave the WIC and join the Rolling Valley Conference, beginning in 2027-28.
“This move puts our students in a position to thrive—both on and off the field—by competing with districts more aligned to our size and location,” said Audubon Superintendent Trevor Miller. “We appreciate the time and thoughtful questions from our School Board and the comprehensive data work by Activities Director, Sean Birks.”
Audubon will go from the smallest school in the Western Iowa to the second biggest school in the Rolling Valley. Audubon will be able to enhance its rivalries with close schools that it currently only sees once a year. Birks says in the WIC, Audubon did not really have a true number one rival.
IKM-Manning joined the conference shift in late July, stating it would join the Rolling Valley Conference starting in 2026-27. They will go from the second smallest in the WIC, to the largest school in the RVC.
“We had a lot of discussions with the community, coaches, fans and the student-athletes,” stated Activities Director Cory McCarville. “We loved everything the WIC had to offer, we had a great working relationship with everyone we ran across, and have the highest respect for everyone, including the schools and fans."
"Ultimately, we have to look at a variety of factors, and travel was the biggest, driving factor. Our average trip in the WIC was over a 75-80 miles, one way. It appears Shenandoah and Red Oak will be making the transition to the WIC, meaning our travel would increase even more. Our average trip in the Rolling Valley would be between 30-45 miles, one way. This move will help put more fans in the stands, and it will benefit all the schools down the road.”
