The start of the new school year also brought the high school into a new conference. Once formerly part of the North Suburban Conference, the school’s athletics and activities now compete in the Mississippi 8.

Take a peek at the Mississippi 8 website, and you’ll find more than 8 schools. When it was originally formed in 2004, the Mississippi 8 included Becker, Big Lake, Buffalo, Cambridge-Isanti, Monticello, Princeton, Rogers and St. Michael-Albertville. Along the way, a number of schools came and went. Today, the name remains as a reminder that six of the original eight original schools were located within 10 miles of the Mississippi River.
“The teams in the Mississippi 8 are generally closer than those in our old conference. We also have more local rivalries in this conference, which will make for funner games,” said Activities Director Jeff Fink.
This could already be seen, for example, in both student sections at the Cambridge Homecoming football game on September 20.
In general, compared to the North Suburban Conference, the Mississippi 8 members have less deviation in number of students enrolled. With 1,598 students, SHFS has the second highest enrollment. In first, is Buffalo High School with 1,627. This may give SFHS an advantage over other schools in the conference. Oddly enough, the city of St. Francis has the third lowest population in the conference. This may be in part because St. Francis is only 24 square miles, but people from surrounding cities go to school here.
“In our last conference, the range of schools was very wide. For example, there were some schools who were very poor and others who were very rich, so it was unfair,” said Fink. “In this conference we are at the same level of other schools in terms of students and money.”
Tennis Coach Scott Schmidt thinks the change will help team results.
“I believe we will be more competitive in this conference because there aren’t as many really strong teams,” said Schmidt.
Beyond athletics, Speech and Debate coach Steve Fetzik had his own opinions about the switch.
“We are poised to have a very strong speech team this year,” said Fetzik. “Ironically the Mississippi 8 invited us to their conference tournament last year and we won it.”