CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

National Trail Conference

Open-knowledge reference entry

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 9, 2025
Entity authorityQ6978977
Source-derived summary

The National Trail Conference (NTC) is a historic high school conference in east central Illinois. The conference participates in athletics and activities in the Illinois High School Association (IHSA). The conference comprises eleven public high schools and one private high school with small enrollments in portions of Effingham, Fayette, Shelby, Cumberland and Clay counties.

Founded in 1935, the National Trail Conference was named after the National Road, which runs through the heart of the conference in Effingham and Fayette Counties and coincides with U.S. Route 40.

While none of the schools in the NTC (as it is informally known) sponsor football, the conference is well-recognized around the state for having strong boys and girls basketball teams. The Teutopolis Lady Shoes have won five state titles, the second-most of any team in Illinois, while the Teutopolis boys have won one state title (in 1986) and numerous regional and sectional crowns. Effingham St. Anthony, Stewardson-Strasburg, and St. Elmo have also made appearances at the Illinois high school boys basketball championship, while Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City (a co-op between two member schools in girls basketball) has made two appearances (2010, 2012) in the girls final four.

Member Schools

Sources:IHSA Conferences and IHSA Member Schools Directory

Former Members

History

The National Trail Conference (NTC) was established in 1935.

Editorial summary

“National Trail Conference” enters the record as open-knowledge reference entry. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what National, Trail and Conference can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1935, 1986, 2010, 2012—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around National, Trail and Conference.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“National Trail Conference” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, National, Trail and Conference provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6978977. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1986, 2010 and 2012.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “National Trail Conference”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow National Trail Conference primary sources, National Trail Conference archive and National research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “National Trail Conference”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from National Trail Conference” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.