The Northern State Conference is a newly reformed conference that has existed since 1954. The conference went through many changes in membership and ultimately dissolved in 2015 when all of its members left for other conferences. Starting in the 2024-2025 school year, the conference will be reformed with six new schools: Bremen, Jimtown, John Glenn, Knox, LaVille, and Tippecanoe Valley.
The earlier NSC lasted from 1954 to 1963, including schools from Carroll, Elkhart, Jasper, Marshall, Newton, St. Joseph, and Starke counties. Jimtown was the only holdover from the earlier conference into the modern one, though Bremen and Knox did join the current version in the 1980s.
In 2013, Culver and Knox announced that they would be leaving the conference after the 2014–2015 school year in order to join the Hoosier North Athletic Conference with three schools from the Midwest Conference and Independent North Judson. LaVille and Triton decided to join the HNAC at the same time. The remaining four schools joined the Northern Indiana Athletic Conference, ensuring the end of the conference.[1]
In 2023, six schools decided to leave their current conferences and join a reformed Northern State Conference. Knox and LaVille from the Hoosier North Athletic Conference announced that they would be leaving. Bremen, John Glenn and Jimtown from the Northern Indiana Athletic Conference, and Tippecanoe Valley from the Three Rivers Conference (Indiana) would all be joining. The new conference would be in effect starting in the 2024-2025 school year.[2]