Flambeau League

The Flambeau League is a former high school athletic conference with its membership concentrated in northwestern Wisconsin. Founded in 1940 and disbanded in 1970, the conference and its member schools belonged to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

History

The Flambeau League was formed in 1940 by six small high schools in northwestern Wisconsin: Butternut, Draper-Loretta, Fifield, Glidden, Tripoli and Winter. Original members were located in four counties and the conference was named after the Flambeau River, which ran through the conference's geographic area. Prentice joined the Flambeau League as its seventh member after leaving the 3-C Conference in 1943. Membership remained stable until 1952, when Draper-Loretta was consolidated with fellow conference member Winter. Hawkins moved over from the similarly named Flambeauland Conference to replace them, keeping the roster at seven schools. Three years later, the Flambeauland Conference disbanded, and former members Ingram-Glen Flora joined as the Flambeau League's eighth member in 1955. Their time in the league would be short-lived, as they were merged with Tony in 1961 to form the new Flambeau High School, with the new school inheriting Tony's Lakeland Conference membership. The next year, Fifield was consolidated into nearby Park Falls, and two schools displaced by the cessation of the 3-C Conference entered the Flambeau League as replacements, increasing membership back to eight schools.
In the late 1960s, the Flambeau League continued to lose members to both rural school district consolidation and membership in other conferences. Hawkins and Westboro left the conference in 1967, with Hawkins' consolidation into Ladysmith and the folding of Westboro into Rib Lake. In 1968, Winter left to join the Lakeland Conference, decreasing the roster to five member schools. The conference lost another member in 1969 due to Tripoli's consolidation into Prentice's district. The four remaining schools competed for one more season before disbanding the Flambeau League in 1970. Butternut and Glidden joined the Indianhead Conference, Prentice became members of the Lakeland Conference and Rib Lake was accepted into the Marawood Conference.

Conference membership history

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1940 till:1970
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
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width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:m
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1940 till:1970 text:Butternut
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1940 till:1952 text:Draper-Loretta
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1940 till:1962 text:Fifield
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1940 till:1970 text:Glidden
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1940 till:1969 text:Tripoli
bar:6 color:tan1 from:1940 till:1968 text:Winter
bar:7 color:tan1 from:1943 till:1970 text:Prentice
bar:8 color:tan1 from:1952 till:1967 text:Hawkins
bar:9 color:tan1 from:1955 till:1961 text:Ingram-Glen Flora
bar:10 color:tan1 from:1962 till:1970 text:Rib Lake
bar:11 color:tan1 from:1962 till:1967 text:Westboro

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