Lakes Conference (Iowa)

The Lakes Conference is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in mid-sized cities in northwest Iowa. Most of the schools are located in their respective county seats.

The conference's current lineup consists of eight schools from eight different counties in northwestern Iowa. Since Iowa is the only state in the nation that maintains separate governing bodies for boys' and girls' athletics, the classifications are different for each gender. The Iowa High School Athletic Association is divided into classes 1A (smallest schools) to 4A (largest schools) for boys while the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union is divided into classes 1A (smallest schools) to 5A (largest schools).

The conference offers the following sports:

The Lakes Conference dates back to the mid-1940s when Storm Lake, Cherokee, Spirit Lake, Sibley, Sheldon, Emmetsburg, Estherville, and Spencer formed the league. For over four decades, the conference had no membership changes. In the 1980s, Sibley merged with nearby Ocheyedan High School and left the conference in 1990 to join the Siouxland Conference. Estherville also merged with Lincoln Central High School in the mid-1990s to form Estherville-Lincoln Central High School. For the 1993-94 academic year, LeMars was added to the conference lineup.

Hull Western Christian joined the Lakes in 1997-98. Since joining the Lakes, Western Christian has participated in 8 state basketball tournaments and won the 2A championship in 2006-07, becoming the first league school to win the state title since Estherville in 1986-87. They followed this up by repeating as state champs in 2007-08, and winning another title in 2009-10.

In 2009-10, Sheldon left the Lakes to join longtime rival Sibley-Ocheyedan in the Siouxland Conference.

The Lakes Conference sponsored football for over 50 years before the Iowa High School Athletic Association realigned all levels of football into a two-year evolving districts format. Because of this change, many of the schools do not compete against each other in football anymore.

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