Good morning! I’m Wade MacDonald!
I’m Brandon Donahe!
And I’m Louie Bode! Welcome to another weekly episode of the “Bear Facts”, your weekly radio update from Bishop Garrigan High School.
All last week at BGHS we celebrated Catholic Schools Week, a special time of year when we salute the difference Catholic Schools bring to a community. One of the Catholic Schools Week events held every year is a special breakfast to salute the faculty and staff at Garrigan and Seton. Each year at that breakfast awards are presented to staff members who have contributed twenty years of service to Catholic education. This year’s award-winners were Deacon Bob Larsen, Father Victor Raemaker, Myra Miller, Kay Kinseth, Dave Wieland, and Sharon Kenne. Congratulations to them, and thanks for all their years of dedicated service.
For the past four months a new face has been around the halls of Garrigan. Mrs. Johnny Hurley is an adult college student who has been doing her student teaching here at BGHS. Mrs. Hurley is a business education major at the Iowa Lakes Center of Buena Vista College. She’s from Mallard, and she’s married and has three children. Mrs. Hurley is almost done with her sixteen weeks of student teaching. Ever since October she’s been working with Mrs. Annette Vaske in the BGHS business department. After she finishes at Garrigan, Mrs. Hurley already has a job lined up at Emmetsburg High School. We wish her all the best there.
Garrigan social studies teacher, coach, and activities director Ron Patterson has received two big honors over the past year. Most recently the man everyone calls “Troj” was selected as Garrigan’s nominee for the Sioux City Diocese Teacher of the Year Award. This comes on top of a big award he got last fall—when at halftime of the state championship football game he was named the Assistant Coach of the Year for Class 1-A. Congratulations on both of these awards, and keep up the good work, Mr. Patterson!
Several of the athletes Mr. Patterson coached were also recently honored. At least nine of the Golden Bear senior football players received invitations to participate in the Down Under Bowl—an exhibition of American football in Queensland, Australia. While the decision to participate is theirs, and most of the players probably won’t make the trip, it is an honor just to be selected. Among the players receiving invitations were Josh Meyer, Trent Youngwirth, Dennis Gisch, Joe Mayer, and Jason Geving; as well as Tyler Struck, Matt Rahm, Nick Roethler, and Justin Frideres. This is by far the largest number of Golden Bears ever selected for the Down Under Bowl.
Pops Concert is just around the corner. This year’s big music show will be Thursday and Friday, March 2nd and 3rd. Among the features at this year’s pops concert are a waiter skit by Chris Kohlhaas, Lynn Kohlhaas, Rebecca McGuire, Ellie Reising, and Jennifer Faber. Some of the solo numbers include “Lullabye” by Tyler Struck”, “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Angie Kohlhaas, “Journey into the Past” by Amanda Freking, “That’s the Way it Is” by Kelly Kohlhaas, and “Life Is a Dance” by Andi Kramer. We’ll be telling you more about the Y2K pops concert on future “Bear Facts” shows.
Twenty-two Garrigan speech students got up very early this morning to make their way westward to the state large-group speech contest in LeMars. Six Golden Bear entries qualified for state speech contest. They included three improvisation groups. The first varsity group is made up of my fellow “Bear Facts” announcers Wade MacDonald and Brandon Donahe, together with Jake Kohlhaas, Tyler Struck, and Corrie Stetzel. Chris Kohlhaas, Mark Rasmussen, Mandy Rahm, Adam Rahm, and Sarah Kollasch are the second varsity improv, while the freshman improvisers are Sylvia Weber, Andrea Schiltz, Rosalind Kirsch, and David Murphy.
Garrigan also has three state entries in Ensemble Acting. Sarah Schmitt, Rachel Foth, and Keshar Nadkarni will be performing “Bubbles Goes to School”, while Bob Brandenburg, Jake Kohlhaas, and Angie Weber are at state with “Who’s Out There?”. The last of Garrigan’s state contest pieces is “The Day After Forever” with Amanda Freking, Mandy Rahm, Adam Rahm, Marian Studer, and Angie Kohlhaas.
Last week’s intramural basketball games were some of the closest ever. Andrew Hellman’s team went into overtime before edging past David Monson’s team, 42 to 41. Meanwhile Ben Meyer’s team outlasted Adam Rahm’s team, 47 to 46. Last Sunday’s intramural session also featured an exhibition game pitting Jason Geving’s team against the Golden Bear varsity boys. They only played two quarters, and needless to say, the varsity won—49 to 34. Even with just two quarters of play, varsity star Brad Nelson beat out all the regular intramural players in the week’s scoring books. Junior Steve Courtney is still the top scorer overall in intramurals, though.
Instead of our regular Senior Spotlight, this week we’re shining our spotlight on our Golden Bear exchange students—Tony Celaj and Vanja Zugay. Tony comes from what used to be one of the most remote countries in the world—the east European outpost of Albania. He is living with the Hutchinson family in Algona. He says Iowa is a lot different from Albania, but the people are friendly, and he likes it here.
Vanja’s home is not far from Albania. She comes to Algona from Yugoslavia and is living with Josh Harp and his family in rural Algona. Vanja came from a city of over a million people, and it has taken her a while to get used to rural Iowa. She says she likes Algona, though, and she is finding school easy. We’re glad to have both Vanja and Tony here, and we hope they continue to enjoy their time at Garrigan.
On the Golden Bear calendar today there is a Search weekend at Garrigan, a time for youth from all over northwest Iowa to get to know themselves and their God. Also today there’s the state large group speech contest in LeMars.
Monday night the freshman basketball teams host Humboldt. There’s a Gala meeting on Tuesday, and that night the JV and varsity Bears take on Clear Lake.
During the games on Tuesday the Garrigan National Honor Society will be hosting a chili supper. Then on Wednesday the freshman boys host North Kossuth.
Thursday there’s a retreat for juniors in the Confirmation program. Then, finally, next Friday the varsity Bears travel to Iowa Falls.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for keeping your dial set here, and be sure to tune in again next week when we’ll be bringing you more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
