Last week the Ames Tribune went to the Collins-Maxwell/Baxter area and wrote about the end of their sports sharing program. The story focuses on the athletics, which came to a surprise abrupt end when the top-ranked CMB softball team lost to Des Moines Christian on Friday, followed by the baseball team losing to Van Meter on Tuesday. It leaves out the whole-grade-sharing debate and abrupt end to that when Baxter put out a “one high school or else” ultimatum and followed through.
Collins-Maxwell and Baxter will field separate 8-man football teams and have their own teams for other sports in the Iowa Star Conference (and probably create some confusion with Colfax-Mingo along the way). It’s worth noting that the athletics sharing began with football, when both schools were squeezed by the larger schools around them and before the district system replaced the conference model for that sport.