Link:
East Husker Conference history
This is an attempt to document the history of the East Husker Conference, which was founded in 1941 as the "Husker Conference" and began competition in the fall of 1942 --, so its 75th anniversary will be coming up for the 2017-18 school year.
This combines both the East Husker Conference with its counterpart, the West Husker Conference. (The link includes a bunch of history on past champions across multiple sports).
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December 8, 1941
The Husker Conference is formed at a meeting at Wisner High School. Stanton, Wakefield, West Point, Wayne, Pender and Wisner are the original schools. Stanton, Wakefield, and Wisner join from the defunct North Central Conference; Wayne from the NENAC; while West Point continues to remain in the Cornhusker Conference while also joining the East Husker Conference.
1942
The Husker Conference begins competition
1947-48
Due to expansion, the conference splits into the West Division (Wisner, Stanton, Wayne, Madison, Neligh) and the East Division (Wakefield, Pender, West Point, Oakland and Lyons -- West Point, Oakland and Lyons were also in the original Cornhusker Conference with Scribner, Tekamah, Hooper and North Bend). A championship game between the two divisions is started in football and boys basketball, with the football game played the week of Thanksgiving (later moved to Veterans Day) -- it would be the last high school football game played in the state every season until the state playoff system was created. The home site for the football game was rotated every year between the two divisions while the basketball championship was played at a neutral site until the late 1960s, when they alternated similar to the football playoff.
1958-59
Conference expands again -- Wisner is moved to the East Division, as Bloomfield, Pierce, Plainview and Laurel join the West Division.
1965
Scribner joins the East Husker, but like Pender, West Point, Oakland and Lyons, keeps membership in the Cornhusker.
1967
Cornhusker Conference member Hooper merges with Uehling, and participates as Hooper-Uehling. Within a year, they would merge with Nickerson, and the district would rename itself Logan View.
1969
"Merger Fever" hits. Wisner merges with Pilger, Oakland merges with Craig, and Tekamah merges with Herman. While the Oakland-Craig and Tekamah-Herman mergers are accepted, the Wisner-Pilger merger frightens the Husker Conference as the other schools felt that Wisner-Pilger would dominate the athletic activities (Pilger had been "D" state football champion the previous year), and it was considered kicking the new school out of the conference. It never came to happen though.
1973
The Cornhusker Conference disbands, as most of the members are already in the East Husker. Those schools not yet in the EHC (Logan View and North Bend) are accepted into the enlarged EHC, and the Cornhuskers' pride and joy -- their boys basketball tournament -- becomes the East Husker Conference basketball tournament -- which continues to this day.
1973-74
With the enlarged East Division, Wakefield and Wisner-Pilger are moved to the West Husker, which has gone through radical changes. In a span of a few years, Plainview, Neligh, Bloomfield, Pierce and Laurel have dropped out to join the NENAC, and Hartington Cedar Catholic, Columbus Lakeview and Emerson-Hubbard move in to replace them.
1974-75
Because of the new state playoff system in football, the Husker Conference football championship game is discontinued. Within a few years, the track, wrestling and speech/drama contests would be split into separate contests.
1976
The last East Husker vs. West Husker Conference championship basketball game is played.
1977
Stanton leaves the West Husker Conference to join the Mid-State Conference; Wakefield leaves the West Husker Conference to join the Lewis & Clark Conference. West Point Central Catholic joins the West Husker from the Centennial Conference. From this point on, the West Husker is a totally separate entity from the East Husker.
1981
Columbus Lakeview leaves the West Husker Conference, while Emerson-Hubbard and Madison leave the West Husker to join the Lewis & Clark and Mid-State conferences, respectively.
1982
The four surviving West Husker schools -- Hartington Cedar Catholic, Wayne, West Point Central Catholic, and Wisner-Pilger -- decide to dissolve the West Husker Conference by 1983. Wisner-Pilger, West Point CC and Wayne each apply to join the East Husker Conference, of which Wayne and Wisner-Pilger are the final candidates and ultimately, Wisner-Pilger is accepted for membership because it is the smaller of the two schools, and closer to the eight other East Husker schools.
1982-83
Wisner-Pilger competes in two EHC activities, speech and track, as they begin their transition. Wisner-Pilger wins both the East and West Husker Conference track titles, the last "unified" Husker Conference title.
1983-84
Wisner-Pilger joins the East Husker Conference in all activities. Hartington Cedar Catholic and Wayne join with O'Neill and South Sioux City to form the North East Conference, which holds on until 1994-95. West Point Central Catholic joins the Mid-State Conference.
1985
Lyons merges with Decatur, forming Northeast High School. The name is soon amended to Lyons-Decatur Northeast.
1986
Scribner, which had been a "B" school as recently as 1970, drops to 8-man football, becoming the first East Husker school to play in that division.
1988
Scribner merges with Snyder
2001
After 24 years, Stanton leaves the Mid-State Conference to re-join the East Husker Conference.
2004
West Point merges with Beemer
2011
The Mid-State Conference begins to aggressively pursue other schools to join their organization -- they target several East Husker Conference schools, but failed to attract any. In order to strengthen the conference, the East Husker does the same with schools from the dying "modern" Cornhusker Conference, which is made up of some former Mid-State Conference schools.
2012-13
Newly merged Howells-Dodge and Cornhusker Conference schools Humphrey and Clarkson/Leigh as well as Twin River join, giving the Husker/East Husker Conference its farthest west representation ever. The conference splits into two regular season divisions in basketball, volleyball and one acts -- Platte (for the larger half of schools) and Elkhorn (for the smaller schools).
2013-14
After 32 years, Madison returns to the East Husker Conference from the Mid-State Conference. Bancroft-Rosalie also joins the East Husker, having left the Lewis & Clark Conference.
