H-W School Board votes to oust W-SR

CRESCO - At its April 11 board meeting, the Howard-Winneshiek CSD Board of Education unanimously voted to remove Waverly Shell-Rock CSD from the Northeast Iowa Conference. 

After Oelwein left the oldest conference in the state of Iowa (102 years) in February 2021, that left just six teams in the NEIC. 

When trying to attract other teams to join the conference, the NEIC had no luck since they didn’t want to compete against the bigger W-SR school.

Activities Director Todd Coulter noted with just five teams to play in the conference two times (home and away games) it is difficult to find teams from other conferences. Supt. Ted Ihns explained some conferences have 10-20 teams, and they can play all games inside their own conference.

H-W School Board President, Alison Holten said, “The best thing for our student athletes and arts is to remove Waverly.” The sentiment was matched by Shirley Sovereign, Andy Ludeking and Toni Johnson (Absent: Tom Williams)

Ihns will vote on the issue at the next executive board meeting.