Six Members Re-elected to MHSAA Representative Council

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

September 28, 2023

Elections were completed recently to fill positions on the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s legislative body, its Representative Council, with six members receiving re-election from their respective constituencies.

Five of the six re-elected members ran unopposed. Gobles athletic director Chris Miller was re-elected to continue representing Class C and D schools in the southwestern section of the Lower Peninsula, Camden-Frontier superintendent Chris Adams was re-elected to continue representing Class C and D schools in the southeastern section of the Lower Peninsula, and Marquette athletic director Alex Tiseo was re-elected to continue representing Class A and B schools in the Upper Peninsula.

Boyne City High School principal Adam Stefanski also ran unopposed and was re-elected to continue representing junior high/middle schools. Jay Alexander, executive director of athletics for Detroit Public Schools Community District, was re-elected to continue representing Detroit Public Schools. Mt. Morris athletic director Jeff Kline was re-elected from a pool of three candidates to continue in a statewide at-large position.

The Representative Council is the 19-member legislative body of the MHSAA. All but five members are elected by member schools. Four members are appointed by the Council to facilitate representation of females and minorities, and the 19th position is occupied by the Superintendent of Public Instruction or designee. The Council meets three times annually. Five members of the Council convene monthly during the school year to form the MHSAA’s Executive Committee, which reviews appeals of Handbook regulations by member schools.

Additional elections took place to select representatives to the Upper Peninsula Athletic Committee. Negaunee athletic director Paul Jacobson was elected to represent Class A and B schools, and Menominee athletic director Sam Larson was elected to represent Class C schools. Paradise Whitefish Township superintendent/principal/athletic director Vincent Gross was elected to represent Class D schools.

The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.3 million spectators each year. 

NFHS Introduces Updated Logo

July 17, 2019

Special from NFHS

As the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) heads into the next 100 years of leading high school sports and other activity programs nationwide, it will be doing so with a new logo.

The new logo was unveiled to the membership earlier this month at the close of the NFHS Centennial Celebration. The NFHS and its 51-member state high school associations celebrated the organization’s accomplishments at the 100th Annual Meeting at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The organization will continue to be branded as the NFHS in the new logo, and the N and F are connected as has been the case since 1979. However, the entire acronym is together on one line as opposed to the previous logo with the NF and HS on separate lines. While red and blue will continue to be the predominant colors, the new logo mixes white with red and blue to suggest a flag waving in the wind. The direction of the flag is pointing upward to symbolize forward-thinking and advancement.

The new design maintains a resemblance to the shield that has been a part of the NFHS logo since 1997. However, the logo is flared at the top, and the bottom of the logo does not have definitive borders, which suggests the organization has moved past its first 100 years and is expanding its reach as the national leadership organization for high school sports and performing arts programs in the United States.

While the organization’s logo from 1952 had four stars to signify the four charter members of the NFHS, the four stripes within the new logo represent the four homes of the organization during the first 100 years. 

“We wanted to retain NFHS as the central component of the new logo because the organization’s national presence has continued to spiral upward in the 22 years since the NFHS acronym was adopted,” said Dr. Karissa Niehoff, NFHS executive director. “However, as we celebrated our first 100 years, we felt it was important to establish a new look that would signify our ever-increasing role as the national leader in high school sports and performing arts programs.”

Counting the Centennial logo that was used during the 2018-19 school year, the new logo will be 10th used by the organization since the first one was adopted in the 1930s. The new logo was created by Section 127, an Indianapolis-based design company.

The NFHS was started in 1920 and had offices in Chicago until 1971, when it moved to Elgin, Illinois. The organization moved to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1979, and then in 2000 to Indianapolis, where it remains today.

The Michigan High School Athletic Association is a member of the NFHS, and Michigan is one of the four founding states of the national association.