Established 1960 (1960) | Location Iowa, U.S. | |
Type Iowa High School Athletic Conference | ||
The Upper Iowa Conference is a high school athletic conference in Iowa made up of 1A, 2A, and 3A (North Fayette Valley) schools in northeastern Iowa. It is currently an twelve team league. It has the current sports: volleyball, boys and girls basketball, golf, cross country, boys and girls track and field, baseball, softball, and wrestling. Postville is the only school that competes in soccer.
History
In 1960, the conference was made up of Waukon, Elkader Central, Postville, Valley of Elgin, Sumner, Fayette, West Union, and Maynard. After Waukon left to join larger schools in the Northeast Iowa Conference, they were replaced by M-F-L of Monona. Also, West Union and Maynard became the center of consolidated districts, changing their names to North High and West Central, respectively. This eight team lineup makes up most of the conference's history. Eventually, with the fall of the Upper Mississippi Conference, Kee, Mar-Mac, and Guttenberg opted to join the Upper Iowa Conference. North High and Fayette also merged to become North Fayette High School. Around this time, Wapsie Valley, South Winneshiek and Turkey Valley also joined the league, pushing membership to 13. M-F-L and Mar-Mac would consolidate in the early 1990s and North Winneshiek would be added to the conference. Garnavillo also joined following the fall of the Mid-East Conference. In 1998 Wapsie Valley in Fairbank left for the NICL. The next year, Garnavillo and Guttenberg merged districts, becoming Clayton Ridge. North Winneshiek closed its high school upon entering into a whole-grade sharing agreement with Decorah for grades 9-12 in 2002. In 2004, Sumner merged with Fredericksburg, formerly of the Iowa Star Conference, to become Sumner-Fredericksburg. In 2012 the Upper Iowa Conference expanded south and added Starmont and Edgewood-Colesburg (Ed-Co). The conference then elected not to add Maquoketa Valley and North Linn, because it would split the conference in two. In 2012 North Fayette and Valley of Elgin decided to go into a whole-grade sharing agreement, bringing the total of teams in the conference down to 12. In the 2014-15 school year, Sumner-Fredericksburg began to competing in the North Iowa Cedar League, dropping the number of schools in the conference to 11. Beginning in the 2017-2018 school year Edgewood-Colesburg will leave the UIC to return to their original conference, the Tri-Rivers Conference. Following the departure of Edgewood-Colesburg, Starmont will leave the next year to join the Tri-Rivers Conference also. The departure of the two schools will drop the total number of Upper Iowa Conference schools to nine.