Good morning! I’m Ellie Reising!
I’m Bob Brandenburg!
And I’m Andrea Kramer! Welcome to another exciting edition of the “Bear Facts”, your weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.
This past year has been one of the most successful in history for activities at Garrigan. Most of the attention has focused on sports, but some of the biggest success has come away from the athletic field. This coming week, six of the best and brightest Golden Bears will be heading to Lawrence, Kansas to compete in the Midwestern Mathematics Finals. Earlier this year Garrigan’s math team took third place in the entire state of Iowa in the state math championship. That earned them a place at regionals, and next Thursday they’ll be on their way to J-Hawk country.
The regional math finals will take most of the day next Friday. There are a variety of rounds—sometimes contestants solve problems individually, other times they work as a team helping each other out. Garrigan’s team is young, but they’ve already demonstrated outstanding ability. Heading up the group are juniors Angie Kohlhaas and Lynn Kohlhaas, and their teammates include sophomore Jennifer Faber and freshmen Steven Kellner and Rosalyn Kirsch. Sophomore Rebecca McGuire will also be making the trip to Kansas as alternate for the team.
Normally coach Daryl Kohlhaas accompanies the math team to competitions. He won’t be going along to regionals, though. That’s because he’ll be with his son, Seton eighth-grader John Kohlhaas. John will be in Washington as part of the United States National Math Counts Team. With John coming up next year and with nobody graduating, we know that Garrigan’s math team will be outstanding well into the future.
Throughout the past week we we’ve been voting for next year’s student council officers. Last week Brad Nelson and Scott McGuire were elected the student council co-presidents. After that, Lori Elsbecker and Ben Lickteig were elected co-presidents of next year’s senior class. John Steier received more votes than any candidate in any race to be elected a student council representative. Serving with him as a representative for the Class of 2001 will be Amanda Freking.
By far the hottest competition came in next year’s junior class. Ten pairs of candidates were running for president, and---needless to say—no one won a clear majority. The top vote-getters, though, were Ashley Arndorfer and Jill Goodman. They will be next year’s junior class co-presidents. The votes were even more spread out among the eighteen candidates in the class representative race. In the end the representatives for the Class of 2002 will be Brianna Miller and Stephanie Hilbert.
The sophomore class races were a little more clear-cut. Three groups ran for the class co-presidency, but Alex Vaske and Zac Lickteig won the majority of votes and won a clear-cut victory. For their student council representatives, the Class of 2003 chose Andrea Schiltz and Jill Johnson. Congratulations to all of the 2000-2001 student council representatives!
If you check out the trophy cases at Garrigan, it won’t take long to realize that golf is the sport with a longer tradition than any other at the school. This year both the boys’ and girls’ teams have continued that tradition of success. On the boys’ side, some of the top golfers include seniors Josh Meyer and P.J. Vaske, junior Russ Vaske, and sophomores Tyler Erpelding and Steve Goede. Among the other golfers are senior Tony Meyer; junior Scott McGuire; and sophomores Adam Cink, Nick Lane, Andy Meyer, Ben Meyer, Nolan Thilges, Jeff Vaske, and Jef Vaske. There are also three freshman golfers: Adam Gisch, Adam Thilges, and Alex Vaske. Tom and Roger Froehlich are coaching the Golden Bear boys’ golf team this year.
The Golden Bear girls had a big win over Algona High last week. Younger players have been the stand-outs for the girls—including freshmen Amanda Wolf and Andrea Schiltz, and sophomores Ashley Thompson and Stephanie Hilbert. Among Coach Dean Capesius’ other top golfers are seniors Melissa Blocker and Katie Patterson, juniors Stephanie Berte and Lynn Kohlhaas, sophomore Jennifer Faber, and freshman Katie Von Ruden. Good luck in tournaments to all the Golden Bear golfers!
In our senior spotlight this week are Matt Dornbier, Eric Eischen, and Josh Forburger. Matt Dornbier was one of the toughest players on the Golden Bear’s state runner-up football team last fall. Football has been by far his favorite activity over the years.
Eric Eischen would have been one of the Golden Bear’s top athletes this year, but an injury kept him on the sidelines throughout football season. In the past he was also a leading intramural basketball player, and he’s been in many other activities over the years.
Josh Forburger is also an outstanding intramural basketball player. His team ended up in second place this year. Around Garrigan, though, Josh is probably best known for having just about the best car of any student here. We wish Josh, Eric, and Matt all the best in the future.
On this week’s Golden Bear calendar, there’s large group band and vocal music contest all day today. Also this afternoon there’s a middle school baseball camp at Garrigan.
Monday there’s the North Central Conference golf meets. The boys will play at Humboldt and the girls in Fort Dodge. Then on Tuesday the girls track team runs in their district meet at Eagle Grove.
Also on Tuesday there’s boys’ track at Forest City. Softball practice begins on Wednesday, and that night the Golden Bear speech team will hold their annual awards banquet.
Next Thursday the seniors begin their final exams. We’ll have baccalaureate mass Thursday night at 7:30 in Friedmann Auditorium. The seniors finish finals Friday morning, and they’ll be out the door at 11:30 that day.
Also on Friday the Garrigan math team will compete in the Midwest Regional Math Championship at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. There’s also boys’ golf sectionals that day, and Garrigan will be hosting the girls’ track conference meet at Algona High.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to join us next week when we’ll have a special show for graduation here at Bishop Garrigan High School.
