The Bear Facts
May 13, 2023

Good morning! I’m Eva Snyder!

I’m Garrett Heying!

I’m Joey Doerning!

And I’m Gavin Swift! Welcome to a special edition of the “Bear Facts”, where we’re saluting the Class of 2023 here at Bishop Garrigan High School.

School is over for the Bishop Garrigan seniors. We finished our final tests had had our baccalaureate mass last week, and this weekend many seniors are holding their graduation parties. The commencement ceremony will be tomorrow at 2pm in Friedmann Auditorium. Thirty-six seniors will be graduating.

The seniors chose turquoise and silver for their class colors. At graduation the girls will carry the class flower, a white mum tipped in turquoise. The class motto this year is “Take pride in how far we have come; have faith in how far we will go.” While the majority of the class will head to college next year, others will be farming, working in business, and joining the military.

There are a lot of things the Class of ’23 will be remembered for. Probably nothing made a bigger impact on the school than four straight trips to the state girls basketball tournament, including two consecutive state championships. Audi Crooks and Molly Joyce now hold almost every Golden Bear basketball record, and we’re expecting both of them to continue making an impact on the college court.

The seniors have excelled in lots of other sports as well. Senior Gavin Swift continued a long string of Golden Bears running at the state cross-country meet. Back when we were freshmen the softball and boys basketball teams made it to state, and more recently we’ve been to state in track and golf. Members of the class of 2023 have won all-state honors in basketball, track, and softball, and they’ll be competing at college in those sports and in baseball and football.

Dance was also a huge activity for the Class of ’23. Six seniors were on this year’s Golden Bear danz squad, and others were part of the team in the past. The dancers continued a long tradition of state championships for Garrigan, and their performances also won them all-Iowa and all-American honors.

The fine arts were very important to this year’s seniors. The class includes all-state musicians, and we were the first class at Garrigan to compete in vocal jazz. Members of the class have won conference and regional art awards, and they’ve also earned multiple Division I ratings in both group and individual speech.

Garrigan has presented lots of memorable plays and musicals over the past four years. This year’s seniors were part of the cast for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Little Women, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Wizard of Oz. They also helped produce It’s a Wonderful Life, Acting Can Be Murder, Runaways, and most recently Angel in the Night. We want to say a special thank-you to departing drama director Carol Eischeid for all her hard work with our class over the years.

Seniors have also been successful in quiz bowl and DECA, and they’ve had leadership roles in FFA. A new activity that started during our years in high school was the trapshooting team. A large number of seniors are on that team, and some of them are hoping to make it to state this summer.

We couldn’t recap our high school years without thinking back to one of the biggest events in recent history, the COVID—19 pandemic. The coronavirus hit in the spring of our freshman year. It was the week of the 2020 boys state basketball tournament when pretty much everything suddenly shut down.

Unlike most schools, Garrigan continued classes that spring. While we learned through various online formats, we still had to do homework and take tests while we were at home. Spring activities were cancelled our freshman year, and in the summer we had to wear masks while traveling to baseball and softball games.

Things still weren’t normal in our sophomore year. That fall we watched livestreams of school masses in our classrooms, and we played volleyball with a limited number of “socially distanced” fans in the gym—sanitizing the ball after every score. Lots of people were gone for long stretches that year, because state rules said we had to stay home if anyone near us tested positive for the virus. Fortunately as we got older, things got back to the way they should be.

There is a little news that doesn’t involve just the seniors. Here to tell you about that is Reagan Murphy.
 

Last week in conjunction with the spring concert we held the Bishop Garrigan Art Show, and seniors won three of the top awards. Avery Berte’s overall display was rated Best of Show, while Joey Doerning’s “Cat in the Hat” took first place honors. Darius Goche took second with “Wild Love”, while third place went to junior Reagan Murphy for “Masked Woman”.

There were four honorable mentions in the art show: Brooke Ludwig for “The Divide of Man”, Ali Lallier with “The Dolan Twins”, Hanna Merron for “Cookie Bin”, and Keegan Berte with “Wild Toad”. Finally the People’s Choice Award went to Morgan Antoine for her artwork “Little Heifer”. Congratulations, artists!

On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s a trapshooting this morning. It’s a home meet at the Izaak Walton Lodge here in Algona.

Tomorrow is graduation day for the Class of 2023. Commencement is at 2pm, and you can listen to it here on KLGA.

The freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have semester tests next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Monday there’s district golf, with Newman hosting at the Highland Park Golf Course in Mason City.

The little kids will have the Bear Cub Relays on Monday afternoon, and there’s a trapshooting meet at Ventura Monday night. Tuesday is the 8th grade celebration, and Wednesday is the last day of school at Garrigan and Seton.

The state track meet will be next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Des Moines. Baseball season starts Friday night, with the Bears playing at Algona High.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Next week the younger Bears will be back with one last show, as they preview the summer here at Bishop Garrigan High School.