Good morning! I'm Jesse Bode!
And I'm Cassie Recker! Welcome to another episode of the "Bear Facts" Happy May Day from everyone here at Bishop Garrigan High School.
The year is quickly drawing to a close. In fact the seniors at Garrigan have just over a week left in school. Next week is basically a normal week. Then seniors take their finals on Monday and Tuesday, May 10 and 11. Baccalaureate is Wednesday the 12th, and graduation will be Sunday afternoon, May 16. Be sure to tune into next week's "Bear Facts" show, when we'll give have a special salute to all the accomplishments of the Class of 2004.
With graduation coming up, it's time for a sort of changing of the guard. We had student council elections last week. Three distinct pairs of juniors ran to be next year's student council co-presidents. Among them were Derek Tindall and Jim Garman as well as Lindsay Schiltz and Kristi Reding. When the votes were all counted, though, the winners had a clear majority. Congratulations to next year's student council leaders: Matt Courtney and Matt Vitzthum.
The boys track team will be hosting their home meet next Thursday. The boys are the defending state runners-up, and while most people will admit that their strength is down a little this year, they're still a good team. Returning seniors include Mason Elbert, John Kohlhaas, Scott Stence, and David Rasmussen. Juniors in track are Cole Vautier, Andrew Berte, Mitch Buscher, Matt Courtney, Chris Reinhart, and Konny Mittlestadt. Also among the juniors are Mark Parrish, Brian Marso, Sam Dittrich, Kyle Frideres, Jim Garman, and Sean Kohlhaas.
There's also a lot of track talent in the sophomore class, including Gavin Freking, Jacob Detrick, Adam Elbert, Jude and Jesse Studer, Spenser and Joe Rahm, John Reding, Jacob Hellman, Jeff Lappe, Nate Pierson, Chad Meyer, and Andrew Missal. Fourteen freshmen round out the boys track team. They include Dustin Tindall, Chris Scobba, Ben Berte, Dustin Rowley, Tony Rouse, and Josh Rahm. Other freshmen are Garry Brosnan, Brian Capesius, Chris Loebach, Scott Kollasch, Alex Hilbert, Caleb DeRoos, and Joey Dailey. Best wishes in the rest of the season to Coach Marty Wadle and the track team!
Last week we told you about the boys golf team, but the girls are also having a good year. They've got two big meets this coming week, leading up to the conference meet on May 10. Coach Dean Capesius has fourteen girls out for golf this year. They include Amanda Elbert, Michaela Mescher, Ashley Berte, Lindsay Schiltz, Debbie Kohlhaas, Sarah Kunkel, Amanda Shaw, and April Wolf, as well as Anna Bormann, Amanda Cruise, Alyssa Gisch, Alissa McGuire, Laura O'Kane, and Caryn Taphorn. Good luck through the rest of the season to the golf team!
Last week we held Stewardship Day here at Garrigan. This is an annual event where we take a day off from the normal routine and do a variety of service projects both around school and in the surrounding communities. Since it always falls close to Earth Day, many of the stewardship projects revolve around tidying up the outdoors-things like adopt-a-highway and trimming shrubbery around the athletic fields. This year some groups also did some much needed carpentry work, and others helped elderly people with clean-up chores in their homes. Stewardship Day is both fun and a reminder that there's a lot more to life than just classes.
A week ago several members of the quiz bowl team competed in the Knowledge Master, a computer-based competition with hard questions from every area of knowledge. While most of the team members didn't think they did that well, their 1089 points placed them in the top half of Iowa schools. Garrigan even beat several larger schools like Boone, Muscatine, Davenport North, North Polk, and and Newton. Congratulations, quiz bowlers!
Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Dan Raney and Grant Vaske. To tell you about them, here again is Jesse.
Dan Raney is an Algona native whose biggest activity over the years has probably been choir. He is also involved in designing pages for the school website. Away from Garrigan you might see Dan working at Pizza Hut. Next year he plans to attend Minnesota West College, and we wish him all the best.
Grant Vaske wraps up our Senior Spotlights for the year. Grant comes to Garrigan from Bancroft. He has also taken lots of computer classes, and he enjoys working on the tech crews for plays and concerts. Grant plans to attend Iowa Lakes next fall. We wish him and all our seniors good luck in the future.
On our Golden Bear calendar this week, the boys golf team is playing today in the Hampton/Dumont Invitational. Monday baseball practice starts, and we'll have an assembly that morning on drinking and driving.
Tuesday is National Teacher Appreciation Day. The girls golf team plays a triangular at Clarion that night, the boys track team is at Algona, and the girls run at Garner.
Wednesday is Cinco de Mayo. That night we'll celebrate with the spring music concert and art show. Then Thursday we'll welcome lots of senior citizens to the school for Grandparents Day.
Thursday night the boys host the BGHS Relays. The girls run at Eagle Grove that night, and the boys golf team plays in the CYO meet at Alton. Then next Friday there's the state large group music contest in Storm Lake.
That's the "Bear Facts" for this week. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to join us again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
