"The Bear Facts"
DECEMBER 18, 1999
I’m Sarah Schmitt!
And I’m Steven Kellner! You’re listening to a very special episode of the “Bear Facts”. Merry Christmas from all of us at Bishop Garrigan High School!
There are more trophies lying by the statue of Mary in the Garrigan lobby this week. They’re from the Garrigan math competition team—which last weekend became the fourth Golden Bear team this fall to qualify for state competition. The math team went down to City High School in Iowa City last Saturday for the Little Hawk Invitational Math Competition. Garrigan competed in the “small school” division, which includes all schools with less than 750 students. Even though they were by far the smallest school at the contest and the questions were some of the toughest ever, the Bears had an outstanding day—ending up in second place overall.
In addition to being the smallest school in the Iowa City competition, Garrigan also had one of the youngest teams there. The Bears’ varsity math team includes juniors Angie Kohlhaas and Lynn Kohlhaas, together with our fellow “Bear Facts” announcer—freshman Steven Kellner. Garrigan also had a JV team entered in the Little Hawk Tournament, and they also qualified for state. The JV team features sophomores Rebecca McGuire and Jennifer Faber and freshman Rosalind Kirsch. Congratulations to Coach Daryl Kohlhaas and the whole Golden Bear math competition team!
Christmas is a time of giving, and at Garrigan we’ve been getting into the Christmas spirit the past couple of weeks. The BGHS Student Council played Santa this past week. They used some of the funds from last fall’s magazine drive to help out two needy area families. They adopted the families and bought them toys, clothes, and other gifts for the holidays. Meanwhile, the Garrigan and Seton faculties donated a whole truckload of presents for area nursing home residents. And last Thursday we had a “red and green day” at Garrigan, where we paid a dollar for the privilege of dressing in Christmas colors. The proceeds went to help out the Kossuth County Care Team. We hope all these projects help to make this Christmas a happier time for people around the area.
For this special Christmas show, we gave a special survey to students and teachers around the school. The first question we asked was “What are you doing over the holidays?” By far the number one answer was “visiting relatives”, but “spending time with friends”, “sleeping”, “working”, and “partying” were all close behind. Some people are travelling, and the destinations range from Minnesota and North Dakota to Florida and California. Football coach Marty Wadle will be ice fishing, while art teacher Steve Brosnan plans to play ice hockey. Junior Cody Youngwirth says he’ll be hunting, playing pool, and playing cards, while senior Corrie Stetzel says that—like a lot of us—she’ll be taking her medicine for the whooping cough. Then there’s junior Chase Johnson, who says he plans to spend Christmas vacation just sitting around and getting fat.
We asked people what they wanted for Christmas, and the answers were extremely varied. Chris Kohlhaas wants juggling balls, while Jake Rahm would like a CD player for his car. Cathy Hellman says she wants a puppy dog, and Steven Courtney wants a lot of new clothes. Several students said that what they really want was a car. Abby Gervais was probably the most specific; she said she wanted a yellow Ford Mustang. Other people said they wanted hunting rifles, video game systems, and money. Both band director Dennis Freking and registrar Sister Janet Goetz said they want “peace and quiet”. Then there was junior Kevin Kohlhaas, who just said he’d like “anything that’s cool”.
Our third question was “What was the most fun Christmas present you ever got?” Some people thought back a while and said things like a toy truck, an EZ-Bake Oven, a new bike, a BB gun, or a singalong dog. Other people had bigger gifts—like a wave runner, a computer, a TV set, a four-wheeler, and a horse. Heather Johnson said her best gift ever was a Barbie playhouse, while Bethany Miller said it was a snowmobile. Bob Brandenburg said the best Christmas gift he ever got was a little sister. Then there’s Kelly Kunkel, who says her top gift is coming this Christmas, when she’s taking a trip to Cancun.
We asked people what was the most exciting thing that happened to them in 1999. Several people named the year’s athletic events—winning state trophies in track, golf, baseball, cross-country, and football; going to the national drill team championships; or winning the local “Triple Crown” by beating Algona High in baseball, football, and basketball. For Coach Marty Wadle, though, the football play-offs took second place to the birth of his daughter Megan. Junior John Steier said his top event was being in a car accident, while sophomore Kevin Marso said it was shooting his first deer. And we can’t forger senior Ed Elbert, who said the most exciting event of his year was meeting his girlfriend Sarah.
With the calendar change coming up, the last question we asked people was whether they were at all worried about Y2K. Out of almost two hundred people surveyed, only three said they were even a little bit worried. Julie Herbst-Ulmer, who is responsible for the school’s computers, added two exclamation points at the end of the “NO!!” in her response. Several students said they weren’t worried, although things would probably be more fun if something weird did happen. And Rosalind Kirsch pretty much summed up what most people were thinking when she said “it’s mostly a dumb hoax, and if we can’t control it, then why should we worry about it?”
On our Golden Bear calendar this week, we’ve got three weeks of events as we look ahead to Y2K. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent.
Monday night the boys’ basketball team plays at Humboldt. Then on Tuesday we’ll close out the year with a special Advent prayer service. School is scheduled to dismiss at the regular time on Tuesday.
Tuesday night there’s basketball at Clear Lake. Then we’ve got the rest of the year off—with no activities scheduled until the year 2000.
Classes resume on Monday, January 3rd. Tuesday the 4th is the Feast of St. Elizabeth Seton, for whom the local elementary school was named. There will be a make-up basketball game that night, with the Golden Bear boys hosting Webster City.
Wednesday the 5th we’ll have our Christmas liturgy here at Garrigan. Then the gym will come alive Thursday the 6th, with the annual holiday concert and art show. The concert was re-scheduled due to the outbreak of pertussis last week. Then on Friday the 7th the basketball Bears welcome Iowa Falls.
We have one last calendar change due to the whooping cough outbreak. The girls’ game against Webster City that was supposed to be played last night has been re-scheduled to January 29th at 5pm.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for this millennium. We’d like to wish all of you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season. We’ll be off the next two weeks as we celebrate the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. But be sure to tune in again on January 8, 2000, to hear all the latest news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
