The Bear Facts
December 9, 2023

Good morning! I’m Violet Bode!

I’m Abbie Capesious!

And I’m Reagan Murphy! Thanks for joining us for the “Bear Facts”, the radio show where each week we keep you up to date on everything that’s happening at Bishop Garrigan High School.

The holiday season is here, and of course Christmas is always a time of giving. We began the season with a special meal packaging event at Garrigan last Friday. Students from grades 3 through 12 helped out to package hundreds of meals that will go to a mission we support in Morton, Mississippi. The base of the meals is macaroni and cheese, but there are extra nutrients included in each package.

The students who were in charge of the packaging activity will be heading down to Mississippi in February. They will be helping out at missions in Morton and Okolona that are run by Franciscan sisters. Garrigan graduate and seminarian Jake Rosenmeyer began our relationship with the missions many years ago.

Students planning to make the trip to Mississippi are Violet Bode, Zach Warren, Madelyn Bronk, Nathaniel Darling, Benjy Trainer, and Lauren Swift; plus Kyra Deike, Ella Schaaf, Sam Plathe, Ava Hough, Ethan Kuper, Brendan Plathe, Avery Lichter, and Nick Laubenthal. They’ll be heading south on February 6 for their mission trip.

As we get into the holiday spirit, the school’s musicians are performing Christmas concerts. Last Wednesday the choir began the holiday concert season, with a show featuring the junior high and high school singers. Sacha Alesch and Izzy Waechter sang a duet at the concert, and Addison Kuper, Logan Nemmers, Cora Deardeuff, Madelyn Bronk, Benjy Trainer, and Lauren Swift had solos during the songs. The band will have their Christmas concert next Wednesday. As usual, the event will start with the elementary band members and then work through the junior high and finally the high school.

Both the band and choir are busy raising money to help pay for a special trip to Nashville which will be happening in March. The trip will include visits to Andrew Jackson’s home at the Hermitage, the Grand Ole Opry, the Museum of African American Music, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Johnny Cash Museum, the Tennessee state capitol, and Nissan Stadium where the Tennessee Titans play.

CCCCC: The students will also participate in band and choir clinics, they’ll visit a showboat, and they’ll enjoy dinners at diverse restaurants like the Hard Rock Café, the Rainforest Café, and Martin’s BBQ Joint. The trip will run March 18 through 23, and we’ll tell you more about it on upcoming shows.

AAAAA: Another group that may be traveling this coming year is quiz bowl. Earlier this fall the quiz bowl team won the conference championship, and they also finished second in their big home tournament. They had two other events recently. In the nationwide 3—2—1 online contest they beat their score from last year, when they were the top team in Iowa. The Bears also had two students competing at the Spirit Lake invitational last Saturday.



Because of their success, the quiz bowl team is looking at a return trip to the National Academic Championships. This would be the Bears’ 22nd trip to nationals, and their first since the COVID-19 outbreak. There are several choices of national tournaments, at sites like New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. The team will be meeting this coming week to finalize their plans for summer 2024.

On last week’s “Bear Facts” we talked about all the winter sports teams, but we left out the basketball cheer squad. This year cheer coach Nicole Taffe is working with Jaelyn Antoine, Blaire Becker, Kylie Capesius, Stormi Larson, Aubrey Meyer, and Allison Denker; as well as Addison Kuper, Sophie Meraz, Hailee Reutzel, and Harper Nelson. Thanks to the cheerleaders for keeping our spirit up all winter long.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on C.J. Weydert. Here to tell you about him is Benjy Trainer.

C.J. Weydert is one of the students who works on maintaining the BGHS student website, bggoldenbears.org. He loves spending time outdoors, and he also likes working with cars and engines. C.J. will be graduating at semester and going into the world of work. We wish him all the best in the future.

Thanks, Benjy. On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s an elementary basketball tournament at Garrigan all day today. Also today the wrestlers have a meet over in Ogden.

The staff Christmas party is tonight, and tomorrow is the second Sunday of Advent. We’ll have a prayer service at school Monday morning, and that night there’s wrestling in Clarion.

There’s a student mass Tuesday morning for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There’s a basketball quad Tuesday night, with the Bears hosting Garner. The danz squad will serve a chili supper at the games.

Wednesday night will be the Christmas band concert. Then next Friday the Bears will travel for a basketball quad at North Union.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to catch the show again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.