The Garden City Telegram
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School superintendents meet to discuss new league
Published 9/19/2008 in Sports : Area High Schools
By BRETT MARSHALL
bmarshall@gctelegram.com
High school superintendents from eight western Kansas communities met Thursday in Scott City at the Majestic Theater to further discuss the viability of a new league that would take schools from three different existing leagues and put into place what could very well become the strongest athletic and activity league in the western half of the state.
The meeting, hosted by Scott City Superintendent Don Wells, included his colleagues from current Northwest Kansas League schools Goodland and Colby, along with Scott City and Ulysses from the Mid State Activities Association and Lakin, Holcomb, Hugoton and Cimarron of the Hi-Plains League.
The superintendents heard an overview of the preliminary information prepared by the principals and athletic/activity directors of their schools. The basic concept agreed upon by those attending, is to have the building level administrators (principals and athletic/activity directors) meet in October to develop an outline of a plan to include a middle school activity component as well as the senior high plans.
Another idea that drew solid support is that the proposed new league be a flexible organization that could accommodate opportunites for regional neighbors. Following the work by the building level administrators in October-November, the superintendents plan to meet again in late November or early December to make further plans based on the information developed and presented.
"We heard how the league and the various activities would be organized," said Wells Thursday afternoon in a telephone interview with The Telegram. "We want to be assured that there will be flexible opportunities, not only for the schools that attended today, but possibly for others as well."
Athletic directors of the high schools had already scheduled an October 22 meeting set to discuss the next steps that might be taken. Most of the school's administrators have asked their boards of education to vote on their interest to pursue or not pursue the new league affiliation.
Due to the fact that many leagues require a one-year notification of member schools to leave, the decisions will likely need to be made sometime next spring or the summer, at the latest. That is because in 2009, the Kansas State High School Activities Association will be conducting its bi-annual realignment of schools for football classification. Those realignments would take effect for the fall 2010 and 2011 seasons. Thus, if the new league were to be formed in time for scheduling purposes, mid-2009 would likely be the approximate deadline for final decisions.
Hugoton, Ulysses and Colby are currently in Class 4A, while the remaining five -- Holcomb, Cimarron, Scott City, Goodland and Lakin -- are all Class 3A schools. Class 4A schools, for the current football alignment, have enrollments based upon grades 9-11 as of September 20, 2007, with enrollments ranging from 203 to 552 students. Ulysses is the largest of the three with 335 students, while Colby and Hugoton have 249 and 227, respectively. The Class 3A schools (ranging from 127-202) are Holcomb (201), Scott City (199), Goodland (197), Lakin (153) and Cimarron (151).
Cimarron's board of education had voted in August to remain in the Hi-Plains League but its superintendent, Mike Waters, did attend the meeting Thursday.
Wells, whose school sits just about in the geographic middle of the proposed league, said he thought the idea is good and workable.
"The upside would be our affiliation with other good schools and a long term relationship with them," said Wells, speaking only on behalf of Scott City USD 466. "Some are 3A and some are 4A and we're sitting on the bubble of 3A/4A so we don't know what class we would be in at the moment."
Wells indicated that it was his belief the league would reflect a total school life of activities with the schools in attendance.
"We are looking at this from the middle schools up and I think it's safe to say that it would not just be athletics, but art fairs, school fairs, music and any other areas where schools have organizations and teams," Wells said. "We think it would be a very powerful league and would represent a major geographic of the state. I think you would see strong representation and competition from these schools in all activities, and especially athletics."
Wells said that his colleagues and he shared one common goal -- a group that is strong for student participation.
"We think this league can offer a high level of competition and participation," said Wells.
Colby and Goodland are easily the two largest schools in the Northwest Kansas League. Other schools include Atwood (2A-87), Hoxie (2A-64), Oakley (2A-108), Oberlin (2A-102), St. Francis (2A-79) and Quinter (8-man I-75). In addition to Ulysses and Scott City, the MSAA has Thomas More Prep in Hays (3A-165), Larned (4A-208) and Pratt (4A-287). In the new league configuration, road trips for Scott City teams would total 461 miles to six different schools (excluding Cimarron) while its existing four-school road trips covers 495 miles. Ulysses, with its current four school excursions, travels 552 miles and the new six-school visitor trips would total 484 miles. TMP-Marian in Hays is the longest road trip for Ulysses at 183 miles with Colby being the longest trip of the proposed league at 153 miles. The three other HPL schools in the mix are all under 50 miles for the Tigers. Scott City's current longest road trip is to Pratt at 164 miles and with the new league it would instead be 109 miles to Hugoton. Also for Ulysses, they are in the same 4A district in 2008-09 with league member Pratt (148 miles) and non-league Kingman (205 miles), so the mileage savings would not be reflected in football but would be in other sports and activities.
It appears that Hugoton would be the school, along with Goodland, that has the most mileage to travel with the league. It is 181 miles for the Eagles to go to Goodland and 178 miles to Colby. Considerations for Hugoton are much the same as Colby and Goodland -- student differential with schools from the other Hi-Plains League members. Hugoton is the only current 4A school in the HPL. Holcomb, Lakin and Cimarron are 3A while Elkhart (106), Stanton County (98), Wichita County (95), Satanta (88), Sublette (124) and Syracuse (106) are all Class 2A. There is some fear amongst the larger schools that Satanta, Stanton County and Wichita County, all under 100 students, will opt to drop into 8-man play for the 2010 school year. That would effectively cut the league to eight schools if there is no league realignment, with five schools in the 3A-4A group and three in 2A.
The final word rests with each school's board of education.
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