Not joining

Jay County High School will not be part of a new athletic conference first reported Thursday.

Around the NorthEast Corner reported on social media that the Patriots would be part of a new Eastern Crossroads Conference. It said the rest of the conference would include Delta, New Castle, Lapel, Shenandoah, Northeastern, Centerville and Eastern Hancock.

JCHS athletics director Alex Griffin referred to the report as “a lie.”

He said Jay County was invited to a meeting regarding the possible creation of a new conference but that it declined repeatedly.

The report stemmed from Rob Hunt, who writes for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, who initially said the new conference would include founding members New Castle, Lapel, Shenandoah and Eastern Hancock. Hunt, a Jay County graduate, later responded to a reply about Jay County, Centerville, Delta and Northeastern being the other schools to join with, “Those are the next 4 I’m hearing as well.”

Both Around the NorthEast Corner and Hunt quickly backtracked after Jay Schools denied involvement. Around the NorthEast Corner also walked back its assertion that Delta, Centerville and Northeastern would be part of the conference, saying instead that they “have received invites but no official membership yet.”

A press release circulating later Thursday evening from the Eastern Crossroads Conference announced commitments from Eastern Hancock, Lapel, New Castle and Shenandoah. It said the conference would begin writing its bylaws in November.

Jay County has been a member of the Allen County Athletic Conference since the 2014-15 school year. It had been independent for several years before that following the dissolution of the Olympic Athletic Conference at the end of the 2009-10 school year. At that point the OAC had slipped to just three remaining members following the closure of Anderson Highland. (The others were Muncie Southside, which then closed in 2014, and Connersville.)

Griffin noted Thursday evening that, as was the case when Jay County joined the ACAC, such a decision would require school board approval.

The Patriots were members of the Classic Athletic Conference along with Delta, Yorktown, Pendleton Heights and Anderson Highland from 1977 through the mid-1980s. (Mississinewa was also briefly a member.) They then joined the Olympic Athletic Conference, which had as many as 10 schools at one point, before dwindling to four for its final six seasons.