The Bear Facts

February 1, 2025

Good morning! I’m Isabella Wechter!

I’m Scott Bormann!

And I’m Spencer Doerning! You’re listening to the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.

We’ve mentioned before that this year four Garrigan students are competing for the Algona High wrestling team. Last weekend the Bulldogs won the North Central Conference championship, and for the first time ever a Garrigan student won an individual conference championship in wrestling. Junior Carter McGregor took first place at 165 pounds. Freshman Teague Alesch also contributed to Algona’s wrestling win. He took fourth place at 106 pounds. Congratulations to the Bulldogs on their team win, and a big congratulations to Carter for being the first wrestling champion from Garrigan.

Last Saturday Garrigan speech students went to Manson for the district large group contest. Six Garrigan students brought home Division I ratings in two different categories. In Group Improvisation Scott Bormann, Shiloh Trainer, and Madelyn Tigges earned I’s for acting out a scene about a cooking competition with very unusual ingredients.

The Bears also brought home a I in Radio Broadcasting. Thadd Kollasch, Tate Foertsch, and Brady Galligan recorded a sports broadcast, where they recapped the college football championship and looked forward to other winter sports. All six of these students now advance to the state large group speech contest, which will be held next Saturday, February 8, in Spencer. Congratulations, speech!

Last Sunday Algona Publishing presented their annual Advance Awards, and five different people associated with Bishop Garrigan were among those honored. Long-time math teacher David Burrow was named Kossuth County Educator of the Year, and Garrigan sophomore Cora Deardeuff was Youth of the Year.

Nicole Taffe, who is a cheer coach at Garrigan, was honored for Retail Business of the Year for running West Vendee. Others associated with our school are John Ernsweiler, who was named Volunteer of the Year for his work with Moving Veterans Forward and Police Chief Bo Miller, who was named Public Servant of the Year. Congratulations to all these award-winners!

This past week auditions were held for the Bishop Garrigan spring play. The drama department will be presenting Clue, a play based on the famous board game with characters like Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. Peacock. You can find out who, where, and how the murder was committed by seeing Clue Friday and Sunday, April 11 and 13 in Friedmann Auditorium.

This past week was Catholic Schools Week at Garrigan. We had lots of special activities, one of which was a special speaker who came to school on Friday. Ben Schumacher is the strength and conditioning assistant for the Green Bay Packers, and he spoke about both medical education and careers related to athletics. He worked at several colleges before going to the NFL, and he has a relationship to our school because he married 2006 Garrigan graduate Kayla Reding.

On Tuesday, February 11, six Garrigan seniors will be heading south to Mississippi to help out at the missions our school supports there. This year they’ll be bringing bookbags for students in Morton and Okolona to use at school, and they’ll also be bringing food we helped pack to supply meals when school lunches aren’t being served. The group held a fundraiser recently to help out with the Mississippi project, and they brought in more than $2,000 to help out.

Both the Golden Bear girls and boys basketball teams are now ranked in Class 1-A statewide. The girls team is #4, while the boys team made it to #10 this week. There’s a week and a half left in the regular season. Girls regionals start Thursday, February 13, and boys districts begin on Valentine’s Day. Garrigan should host at least one round of playoffs for both girls and boys basketball.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Alaina Bormann. Here to tell you about her is Sam Greteman.

Alaina Bormann is an honor student whose biggest activities are probably volleyball and band. She was also commissioned as a Eucharistic minister last fall, and she’s been involved in quiz bowl and the “Bear Facts”. Alaina has gotten several college credits in her time at Garrigan, and when she’s not at school you’ll probably see her at Scooter’s Coffee. She’ll be off to college next year, and we wish her all the best in the future.Thanks, Sam. On our Golden Bear calendar, the freshmen have a confirmation meeting tomorrow. Monday is the Feast of St. Blaise, and we’ll begin the day with the traditional blessing of throats.

Monday night the JJV basketball team will host Forest City. Tuesday the wrestlers have regional duals, which will be a home meet at Algona High. Also on Tuesday the JV and varsity basketball teams travel to Forest City.

We’ll have a school mass Wednesday morning. That night there’s a special “Dads’ Night Out” event for current and future Bishop Garrigan fathers. Friday the Bears host West Hancock, and the danz squad will be serving a chili supper during the games.

Next Saturday the Golden Bear swim team will have their first-ever district meet in Mason City. There’s also state speech in Spencer that day, and the wrestlers will be competing in sectionals.

That’s our first “Bear Facts” for February. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to join us again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.