Great points. In a weaker district, I believe that your out of district has to be very strong. GW and Halifax are both geographically close to a lot of very good programs in NC. I remember the years that GW played nationally ranked RJ Reynolds out of Winston Salem, yearly. Also had some epic match ups with Reidsville (Holiday Shootout) and Dudley. Halifax and GW have both played Durham Hillside and Person County, two very competitive programs a short drive down the road. GW has no business playing Carlisle, Magna Vista, Holy Cross and Westover Christian or even inviting them to the Coach Harry Johnson Classic. Coach believed that in order to be the best, you had to play and beat the best. GW should at the very least be playing Cave Spring, Morehead (had a very very solid team the past 2 years) or Northern/Northeast Guilford (both 30 minute bus rides) and Person at minimum for out of district.
To answer your last question, GW and Halifax should be in the Seminole. Send Rustburg to the Dogwood, Dan River (Chatham as well) back to the Piedmont, and send Liberty Bedford to the Blue Ridge. Makes a lot of sense and a majority of the schools in the Seminole are actually closer for Halifax.
For the people who will say that each Seminole school is at least an hour bus drive or talk about finances, Danville has to get back to investing in their only athletic program in the city. Growing up, GW dominated everything in the WVD. The girls basketball program isn’t even a shell of itself anymore (those girls ran the WVD; sadly always ran into Forest Park or Princess Anne), I don’t know when the last time the baseball team has been good (GW was a top 5 team yearly in Triple A) and Optimist League is no more and you can tell when watching GW football. No more standing room only city league youth basketball games or seeing what kid dropped 20 points in the Danville Register and Bee. Danville has dropped the ball on the kids. I believe the County has picked some things up, but it’s nothing like city league that helped open the door for A LOT of boys and girls to be successful in the Blue and Silver.