(3-2-25) One of the oldest athletic leagues in Ohio is the Western Buckeye League (WBL). While leagues in Ohio continue to see membership changes the WBL has not had that problem. The last membership change was when Shawnee re-entered the league on October 5, 1981…43 years ago.

Although the leagues first year was the 1936-37 school year…there was a look-alike predecessor the Midwest League.

From the 1929 St. Marys Memorial yearbook the following appeared below. You will note that the name in the the title was the Midwest Conference, while in the article it was the Mid-Western League.

There were six members, five of them are still members of the WBL, only Ada is not.

April 8th 1940, The Evening Leader

In 1932 Celina and Kenton announced that they were both leaving the league, another name variation appeared in this story….Midwest Ohio Scholastic League. They left because of a league ruling that all members had to compete in football, basketball and track. The remaining members at this time included Van Wert, Ada, Bluffton, Wapakoneta and St. Marys.

Story from The Evening Leader

In a 1936 Evening Leader story…St. Marys joined the new Western Buckeye League along with Van Wert, Bluffton and Wapakoneta, they all joined because the Midwest League had disbanded. The WBL also added two other schools Bellefontaine and Celina. Ada decided against joining.

In the 2nd year (1937-38) of the WBL Celina would win their 1st league title in basketball. They wouldn’t win their next basketball championship until the 1949-50 season.