The Bear Facts
January 17, 2015
Good morning! I’m Emily Riesenberg!
I’m Emily Marlow!
And I’m Kaitlyn Fogarty! Thanks for joining us for the “Bear Facts”, your weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.
Today eight members of the Golden Bear math team are headed over to Iowa Falls for a Great Plains Math League competition. Ben Degen, Tony Kollasch, Josh Hamilton, Sam Trainer, Zach Kollasch, Levi Capesius, Noah Buscher, and Danielle Plathe will be spending the day competing with their problem-solving skills. Good luck to them and to Coach Daryl Kohlhaas.
Meanwhile the Golden Bear quiz bowl team is busy planning an upcoming event. Two weeks from today they’ll be hosting a conference quiz bowl tournament. For years Coach David Burrow tried to organize a tournament for the North Central Conference, but that idea never went anywhere. This is the first year Garrigan is in the North Iowa Conference, and already quiz bowl has been added to the list of conference activities. Garrigan will host the conference tournament on Saturday, January 31.
Catholic Schools Week is just around the corner, and as part of our celebration seven Garrigan seniors will be installed as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. Cassidy Vitzthum, Kaitlyn Fogarty, Ben Vaske, Reece Wadle, Emily Riesenberg, Patricia Brandt, and Taylor Illg have gone through special training to be Eucharistic ministers, and they will now help serve communion at school masses and also in their home parishes.
There’s a lot of construction going on at Garrigan this winter. The most obvious part is the new addition, which is all enclosed and roofed. Interior work is proceeding quickly. In addition to that, there’s a lot of other work happening in the main building in preparation to move grades 4 – 6 from Seton to Garrigan next year.
Our former ICN room is being completely gutted and re-built as a state-of-the-art business lab. There has also been major construction going on in the former computer lab, the music area, and in a lot of places behind the scenes. We hope to have the rooms ready by the end of the school year to make things easy on the teachers and students who are moving.
Did you know that Garrigan has two different websites? Our longtime address bishopgarrigan.org is now being maintained by the development office, while all of the content people have come to expect has been moved to bggoldenbears.org. This semester Jess Marlow, Alex McGuire, Cameron Langerman, Jacob Berte, and Andrew Lallier are the team maintaining the site. Mr. David Burrow oversees their work.
Intramural basketball started last week. So far there has only been one game, but it featured what will probably be the two top teams. Landen Studer and teammates Cameron Langerman, Devin Degen, Cady Steinman, Steve McCall, and Andrew Lallier led through most of the game and beat Mark Fakler, Carter Hall, Emily Riesenberg, Morgan Frideres, Tony Kollasch, Kaitlyn Fogarty, and Taylor Frideres. The top scorer and player of the week was Andrew Lallier. Intramurals will continue most Sundays through mid-March.
Remember that the student council’s annual magazine drive continues through Valentine’s Day. Most of the drive is online. You can find the link at the bottom of the “What’s New” page on bggoldenbears.org. You can choose any Garrigan student to get credit for your purchases, and when you renew your magazines through the school 40% of what you buy stays right here to support student activities.
Last Wednesday a large group of Garrigan band students were in Storm Lake for the Diocese of Sioux City honor band festival. Representing the Bears were Hannah Bernhard, Mariah Bronk, Mark Fakler, Kylie Fox, Johanna Vaske, Caitlyn Thilges, and Betty Straub; as well as Gaby Steil, Morgan Frideres, Patrick Marlow, Zach Kollasch, Taylor Frideres, and Caroline Hamilton. Rounding out the high schoolers were Dorothy Kirsch, Josh Hamilton, Courtney Kirsch, and Tony Kollasch. Fourteen junior high students were also honored at the event.
Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Maddie Keith. Here to tell you about her is Taylor Illg.
Maddie Keith always has a big smile for her friends at Garrigan. She’s an Algona native, and her biggest activity over the years is publications. She was a yearbook editor, and she’s also worked on articles for the student page in the newspaper. Maddie has also worked as a manager for the danz squad. Her schedule includes college credit classes, so she’ll have a head start when she goes off to college in the fall. We wish Maddie all the best in the future.
Thanks, Taylor! On our Golden Bear calendar this week, there’s a math tournament today at Iowa Falls. Then tonight the danz squad is sponsoring a Sadie Hawkins dance.
Intramurals continue tomorrow. We’ll have parish busing on Monday, because Garrigan and Seton are in session, but the Algona Community Schools are closed. That night the freshman basketball teams play at Britt.
The school board meets on Tuesday, and that night there’s JV and varsity games at West Hancock. Wednesday the seniors leave for their class retreat in Cedar Falls. Tryouts for the spring play will be Wednesday and Thursday nights.
Thursday there’s freshman basketball at Lake Mills. Then next Friday we’ll be hosting a basketball quad, with the Bears taking on Lake Mills. The National Honor Society will serve a chili supper during the games.
That’s this week’s “Bear Facts”. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to catch the show again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.