It is composed of Class A schools from the MHSAA in Berrien, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, and Van Buren counties.
The 1970s The league made its first big change in 1977 (then known as the Big 8) as (Battle Creek Lakeview, Holland, Loy Norrix, Niles, Portage Central, Portage Northern, and St. Joseph) and Independent Kalamazoo Central made up the membership of the conference.
Portage Central won the first football title (7-0) and advanced to the Class A State Final, losing to Birmingham Brother Rice 17-7.
Portage Central also won the first Boys Basketball league title (11-3, lost to conference foe Loy Norrix in districts).
Lakeview rejoined the Twin Valley (which they would stay until the league folded) and Holland left to join the Ottawa-Kent Conference (currently playing in).
With those schools gone, Independent Battle Creek Central and former Lake Michigan Conference member Benton Harbor.
The longtime Twin Valley Athletic Association (at the time was the oldest conference in the State of Michigan) was going into peril as Albion, Hillsdale, and Parma Western wanted to leave the conference due to several factors, mainly declining enrollment (Battle Creek Lakeview was a Class A and Albion was a Class C school) and declining athletic performance (the three above mentioned were in the bottom of the league, as the bigger schools dominated the league).
Independents Dowagiac and Stevensville-Lakeshore were struggling to find opponents (both schools were scheduling out-of-state opponents; Lakeshore played Rock Island, Illinois for one of their football games), and Mattawan's enrollment had outgrown the Kalamazoo Valley Athletic Association.