Area conference realignment for high school sports has tempered a bit this decade. But it still is happening. Case in point: Fisher is scheduled to depart the Heart of Illinois Conference and join the Lincoln Prairie Conference starting in the 2026-27 school year. Lincoln Prairie President and Arcola Principal Nick Lindsey announced the move on Saturday night, giving the small-school league another local school. “We are excited to bring in a school who exemplifies the qualities and demographics of our conference,” Lindsey said. Fisher is a long-standing member of the HOIC, but will only be part of the conference that extends into the Bloomington-Normal area and just outside of Peoria for one more year during the 2025-26 school year. The Bunnies are the smallest HOIC school that still plays 11-man football and does not co-op with another school. Fisher last made the IHSA football playoffs in 2019 and has gone a combined 5-26 this decade. The Bunnies have had four coaches in the last five seasons, with Jeff Palmer set to start his second season in charge this fall after guiding Fisher to a 2-7 record in 2024, and played a junior-varsity only schedule in 2022 because of low numbers. Fisher is projected to have an enrollment of 197 students for the upcoming school year, based on IHSA enrollment figures, with only Ridgeview (166 students), Lexington (163) and Flanagan-Cornell (106) smaller in terms on enrollment. Ridgeview and Lexington co-op for football, while Flanagan-Cornell plays 8-man football. Fisher joining the Lincoln Prairie will give the LPC 16 schools for the 2026-27 school year, but several schools, such as Cerro Gordo and Bement, co-op to form Cerro Gordo/Bement teams in all sports. Oakland, Kansas and Shiloh all co-op to form Tri-County. Cumberland, a member of the LPC since it started in 2019, is set to leave the conference at the end of the 2025-26 school year to join the National Trail Conference. The LPC, around for six years now after forming out of the remnants of the now-defunct Little Okaw Valley Conference, had a 10-team football conference for its first full season in 2019, but Blue Ridge and Unity Christian dropped down to 8-man football after that initial LPC season. The league had eight schools playing football in the fall 2021 season coming out of the pandemic and again in 2022 before adding Nokomis and Sullivan in 2023. Sullivan used to compete in the Central Illinois Conference, a league formed in 2014 after the restructuring and eventual dissolution of the long-time Okaw Valley Conference that had ripple effects throughout several leagues and schools in east central and central Illinois. Nokomis only plays football in the LPC and is in the MSM Conference for its other sports. “This addition (of Fisher) provides further stability in our league and will provide 12 football playing schools, with Unity Christian pledging to come back to 11-man football in the 2026-27 school year,” Lindsey said. When the league gets to 12 football schools for the 2026 season, two divisions will be created based on geographical locations, Lindsey said. The nine-game regular-season schedule would consist of five in-division games and four cross-division games. For Fisher, the lengthiest trip in the LPC will be either when the Bunnies head south to Sullivan or Okaw Valley or venture west to Sangamon Valley. On average, the trips to HOIC schools by Fisher is roughly 47 miles, with many located to the west and to the north. The average trips to LPC schools from Fisher is 50 miles, with all of the LPC schools south of Fisher. The move of Fisher to the LPC gives the conference two Champaign County schools, with Fisher in the northern part of the country and Heritage in the southern part of the county in Broadlands. It also puts Fisher with schools who are closer in enrollment with their school than the current HOIC schools. Sullivan is the biggest LPC school with 317 students for the 2025-26 school year. Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond (294 students), Argenta-Oreana (246), Tri-County (219 with students from Kansas, Oakland and Shiloh), Cerro Gordo/Bement (210 students from both Cerro Gordo and Bement), Sangamon Valley (198), Arcola (195), Villa Grove (192), Blue Ridge (155), Okaw Valley (150), Unity Christian (128) and Heritage (121) make up the rest. Eureka is the biggest HOIC school with 513 students, followed by El Paso-Gridley (354), Tri-Valley (324), Deer Creek-Mackinaw (293), Tremont (281), Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley (275), Heyworth (273), Fieldcrest (258), LeRoy (232), Ridgeview (166), Lexington (163) and Flanagan-Cornell (106). Aside from football, Lindsey said the changes coming to the LPC will help in other sports. “It also allows our conference to continue to host conference basketball tournaments with a balanced game maximum/minimum game potential, allowing for schools to have a better understanding of the number of games possible when creating schedules,” he said. “We look forward to having Fisher join our league and have been very appreciative of the work from their administration and staff.”
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