It’s probably safe to say that there is no other high school athletic conference in the state of Missouri quite like the Grand River Conference….and that isn’t necessarily a good thing.
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Once again, as seems to happen every four or five years, membership in the GRC is the hot topic for league-school administrators, who have met amongst themselves and are now taking their thoughts and ideas back to their respective school boards.
League expansion is on the minds of many. School officials have discussed adding Trenton to the current lineup of ten GRC schools. Putnam County and Milan have also been mentioned as possible league additions. Trenton is a long-time independent. Putnam County and Milan are members of the Tri-Rivers Conference.
Gallatin R-5 Superintendent Dennis Croy confirmed this week that the GRC 11-man football schools were invited to a meeting at Trenton last fall to discuss options for league expansion. Trenton officially put in a request to join the league in early December of last year.
“This is not the first time they have shown interest in joining the conference,” said Croy, who, on the basis of rotation, is the current president of the Grand River Conference. “On the 11th of December we invited all conference schools to a meeting in Gallatin to discuss several scenarios,” he added.
Croy said a committee was formed to ask other schools, those playing 11-man football and those playing 8-man football, to join the conference with the idea of forming a “super conference” that would divide schools into large and small divisions for non-football sports like softball and basketball. Putnam County and Milan, two 11-man schools that have been in discussions so far, have already been invited.
“The bottom line is, there aren’t any concrete facts or scenarios to work with right now,” Croy stated. “We hope to know something in the next month to six weeks,” he said, adding that a vote on Trenton is not likely to come right away.
Monday’s column by Cody Thorn in the St. Joseph News-Press touched upon the subject and borrows from and adds to two previous sources, the Sheridan Express and the Princeton Post Telegraph.
According to the Sheridan paper, Worth County is strongly against adding Trenton to the GRC due to its comparative size to other schools. The Princeton paper has stated that King City also wants to keep Trenton out. The News-Press adds Stanberry and Albany to the list of schools that may vote against admitting the much-larger school.
The league’s constitution recognizes Albany, Braymer, Gallatin, King City, Maysville, Polo, Princeton, South Harrison, Stanberry and Worth County as full voting members. According to conference bylaws, it takes a three-fourths majority, or eight of ten schools, to add or subtract a school from league membership.
Adding 8-man football schools to the GRC lineup — St. Joseph Christian, North Andrew and Pattonsburg are just three that have been mentioned — could win votes for league expansion. The league’s smaller 8-man schools might not frown upon adding a Trenton to the GRC knowing they wouldn’t have to face them in a league divided between large and small schools.
“What I can say for sure right now is that we (Gallatin) need to stay in a conference,” Croy stressed. “We would prefer to stay in the GRC and we’d like to protect the integrity of the Grand River Conference,” he added.