Northeast-Arma joining Three Rivers League in 2010

Once again, the Three Rivers League will undergo change. Effective with the 2010-11 school year Northeast High School in Arma, Kan., will leave the Crawford-Neosho-Cherokee League to join the TRL. The move was approved unanimously by the Unified School District 246 board of education Monday. The move will not happen until 2010-11 because a two-year football schedule cycle has to be finished up in 2009-10.

This will be the 11th change in the membership of the TRL since the start of the 2003-04 school year. That year alone, Central Heights and Pomona left the league Gridley and LeRoy merged to form Southern Coffey County, which itself left the TRL in after 2007-08.

Most of the changes that have taken place have shifted the Three Rivers from a league of schools varying in size from mid-Class 3A to very small 1A's into one of mostly 2A's and 1A's. Larger schools such as Pomona, Central Heights and Jayhawk-Linn have left and been replaced by smaller ones such as Oswego, St. Paul and Chetopa.

Northeast will give the TRL four 11-man football-playing schools once again. Since Jayhawk-Linn left after the 2007 football season to become one of the charter members of the Pioneer League, only Oswego, Pleasanton and Uniontown have been playing 11-man football.

Northeast goes from being the second-smallest school in the CNC to one of the bigger ones in the TRL. The school is somewhat familiar with TRL competition as it has been assigned to football districts with Uniontown, Pleasanton and Oswego in the past and also is a participant in the Pleasanton Mid-Season Basketball Tournament, where it sees other league schools such as Crest and Uniontown.

Northeast was a charter member of the CNC. The only remaining charter members of the TRL are Uniontown, Pleasanton and Marmaton Valley. Other league schools are Altoona-Midway, Crest, St. Paul, Chetopa and Oswego.

The addition of Northeast will make the TRL a nine-school league. In the past, the TRL has had as few as seven schools and as many as 15.

Summary of Three Rivers League membership since 2000:

* 2000: Members at this time were Central Heights, Gridley, Hamilton, LeRoy, Marmaton Valley, Pleasanton, Pomona, Uniontown and Williamsburg. Flinthills, Hartford, Madison and Marais des Cygnes Valley were football members only as the Lyon County League at that time did not sponsor eight-man football.

* 2001-02: The Lyon County League switches football sponsorship from 11-man to eight-man. The associate memberships of Flinthills, Hartford, Madison and Marias des Cygnes come to an end.

* 2003-04: Central Heights leaves for the Frontier League. Pomona leaves to become a charter member of the Flinthills League. Gridley and LeRoy are merged to become Southern Coffey County.

* 2004-05: Hamilton leaves to join in the Mineral Belt League. Oswego comes over from the MBL.

* 2005-06: Altoona-Midway comes over from the MBL.

* 2006-07: Williamsburg's membership ends when the West Franklin school district decides to consolidate it and Pomona to create West Franklin High School. The combined school stays in the Flinthills League.

* 2007-08: Jayhawk-Linn, one of only four schools which had been in the TRL for its entire existence to that point, leaves to become a charter member of the Pioneer League. Southern Coffey County leaves to join the Lyon County league. Chetopa and St. Paul join after the dissolution of the Mineral Belt.

* May 11, 2009: Northeast-Arma announces it will leave the CNC to join the Three Rivers in 2010-11.