Longtime Glenwood Rivals Leaving Hawkeye 10 Conference

Three of Glenwood’s longest and closest athletic rivals over the years have made the decision to leave the Hawkeye 10 Conference.

Boards of education at Shenandoah, Lewis Central and Red Oak have all voted in the past two months to leave the conference.

Enrollment disparity among the current 11 teams in the conference and the opportunity to compete against schools of similar size is at the core of the conference realignment discussions that have taken place across western Iowa and other areas of the state in recent months.

Shenandoah and Red Oak are both founding members of the original Hawkeye 6 Conference, along with Atlantic, Creston, Clarinda and Villisca. The conference was formed in 1930 when those six schools broke away from the former Little  10 Conference, which also  included Glenwood, Bedford, Corning and Sidney.

The admission of Corning in 1946 and Glenwood in 1951 turned the Hawkeye 6 into the Hawkeye 8 Conference. Villisca and Corning left the conference in the 1960s to join the Tall Corn Conference but Lewis Central and Harlan were added in the early 1970s to give the league eight schools.

The conference became the Hawkeye 10 Conference in 1993 when Kuemper Catholic and Denison were added. Council Bluffs St. Albert came aboard in 2013 as the 11th school, but the conference has retained its name as the Hawkeye 10.

Earlier this summer, the Shenandoah Board Of Education voted to leave the Hawkeye 10 and join the Western Iowa Conference, comprised of smaller school districts, including Tri-Center, Missouri Valley, Riverside and Underwood. Red Oak will also be joining the Western Iowa Conference after its school board approved the move at a meeting in August.

Enrollment-wise (high school), Shenandoah and Red Oak are near the bottom of the Hawkeye 10 Conference with 231 and 220 students respectively. Only Council Bluffs St. Albert has fewer students than Red Oak with 135. In contrast, Lewis Central has 792 students, Denison-Schleswig has 587 and Glenwood has 438.

As members of the Western Iowa Conference, Shenandoah and Red Oak will be in athletic competition with school districts of comparable size.

The Red Oak Board Of Education unimously approved the move to the Western Iowa Conference at a meeting in August. Board members believe the change of conferences will be a good fit for Tiger athletics.

While Shenandoah and Red Oak have chosen to move to a conference with lower enrollments than they compete against in the Hawkeye 10, Lewis Central, will be moving in the opposite direction when it joins the Missouri River Conference, which includes three Sioux City schools with enrollments over 1,000 - North (1,202), East (1,172) and West (1,002). Lewis Central will be joining a conference that also includes Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln and Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson that have respective enrollments  of 997 and 857.

Glenwood was also invited to join the Missouri River Conference (along with Lewis Central, Harlan and Denison) but declined the invitation in July.

The Hawkeye 10 Conference announced in July that Carroll and Treynor had both been invited to join the league. Treynor currently competes in the Western Iowa Conference and Carroll is a member of the Racoon River Conference. Treynor has reportedly opted to decline the invitation and remain in the Western Iowa Conference, while Carroll is expected to make a decision later this month. The administration at Carroll has sent a survey to coaches and parents and will likely make a recommendation to its board of education at a Sept. 15 meeting.

No official timeline has been set for the departures of Shenandoah, Red Oak and Lewis Central from the Hawkeye 10, but it could happen as early as 2026.