History

Member schools of the Corn Belt Conference and the Okaw Valley Conference began discussing a merger after the announced departures of Eureka High School and Mahomet-Seymour High School from the Corn Belt Conference in 2014 and 2015. Principals of the ten schools voted unanimously in February 2016 to begin plans to merge the conferences. School boards of the ten schools approved the new conference in March and April 2016. Student bodies of each school submitted their favorite names for the conference to the principals. Illini Prairie was selected unanimously by the principals.

Paxton-Buckley-Loda joined the conference at the start of the 2020-21 school year, making the move after St. Thomas More decided to play an eight-man football schedule. PBL had played in the Sangamon Valley Conference since 1990. St. Thomas More remains a member of the Illini Prairie Conference in all other sports.

Olympia in 2021, left the Illini Prairie Conference to join the Sangamo Conference, thus leaving the Illini Prairie Conference with ten teams in the Conference and 9 of them that play football, still leaving St. Thomas More an 8-man football team.

Previous Members

• Standford-Olympia HS