The winds of change are not only blowing on a national level across the college football landscape, realignment is coming to eastern Iowa as well, and the River Valley Conference, of which the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks are a member. The first change, and the only one that’s official thus far is North Cedar leaving the conference, effective at the start of the 2022-23 school year. The Knights will become a member of the Tri-Rivers Conference which includes teams like Lisbon, Springville and North Linn, leaving the RVC with 13 member schools in two divisions, six in the north and seven in the south. With that move confirmed, conversations have begun between other schools and the RVC about joining. The two candidates involved in the most serious discussion according to one of the Tri-Commissioners of the River Valley Dave Wright, affiliated with Bellevue Schools, and the minutes from the Athletic Directors meeting in April are Dyersville-Beckman and Maquoketa. This week, Wright spoke with KCII Sports about what prompted North Cedar’s move and where conversations are regarding the application process and timeline for Beckman and Maquoketa. “North Cedar has been accepted to the Tri-Rivers Conference. Their enrollment has been dropping, so they feel that’s a better fit for them at this time. They have been a great league member so we wish them well, there are no hard feelings. That takes us from 14 schools down to 13 schools, kind of an odd number when it comes to scheduling. During the last couple of years, the WAMAC Conference has changed a lot too with Western Dubuque leaving for the Mississippi Valley Conference and Central DeWitt joining the MAC down in the Quad Cities area. That kind of leaves Maquoketa and Dyersville-Beckman on an island over here. The (Beckman and Maquoketa) boards have discussed applying to the River Valley. Maquoketa has already been included in our junior high sports schedules for the last few years. I believe they are on track to make an application but nothing has been officially done at this time.”

The River Valley Conference was born in 2013 when members of the former Big East made moves to existing conferences, those included the Tri-Rivers, WAMAC and the Cedar Valley Conference. When the initial applications of the former Big East Schools to join the Cedar Valley were rejected by member schools, who cited travel time and loss of classroom time as issues with the realignment, the state Department of Education became involved and crafted the River Valley. The only change in membership for the conference since formation in 2013 was the addition of Anamosa in 2017 after they left the WAMAC. The south division includes Mid-Prairie, Iowa City Regina, West Branch, West Liberty, Tipton, Wilton and Durant with the north featuring Anamosa, Monticello, Cascade, Camanche, Northeast Goose Lake and Bellevue. Along with Wright, Tim Lambert of Monticello and Gregg Mohl, formerly affiliated with Northeast Goose Lake, serve as Tri-Commissioners for the league.