Good morning! I'm Cassie Recker!
And I'm Brooke Myers! Welcome once again to the "Bear Facts". Happy New Year from all of us at Bishop Garrigan High School!
This is a busy time of year at Garrigan. The rush started up even before Christmas vacation was over, when last Saturday the Golden Bear basketball team played the first of four opponents in a single week. This past week the Bears took on Hampton-Dumont, Clear Lake, Humboldt, and Ft. Dodge St. Edmond. The boys basketball team has been doing especially well, dominating most of their conference opponents. Six-foot, seven-inch center Adam Arndorfer has been anchoring the Golden Bears this year, helped out by fellow seniors like Brent Shillington, Scott Stence, and Aaron O'Kane. We're all hoping the rest of the Bears continue their success on through the rest of the season.
Today is another busy day. Twenty-three Golden Bears are up in Swea City today for the first-even Cougar Invitational Quiz Bowl. North Kossuth is hosting the event, and Garrigan has four teams entered in the tournament. The first team includes captain John Kohlhaas, together with Matt Courtney, Eric Cassmann, Amber Golwitzer, and Tyler Rolling. A second team features Scott Stence, Jesse Bode, Josh Broesder, Amanda Thompson, Adam Cink, and Jacob Richter. The third team includes Captain Jacob Hellman, Alison Brandenburg, Joe Rahm, Spenser Rahm, Andrew Missal, and Jeff Lappe. Rounding out the group is a team with Captain Seth Rogers, Brandon Rowley, Chris Scobba, Alex Bradley, Alex Elbert, and Josh Rahm. We hope the Bears start the new year out right. Good luck, quiz bowl!
There's more quiz bowl coming up. Next Wednesday the Bears hope to finally complete an event that was originally scheduled in November. The Trivia Champions Think-a-Thon is a charity competition where students use their brains to raise money for children with cancer at St. Jude's Research Hospital. It's been postponed twice already-once because of technical problems and once due to weather. We're all hoping the third time is a charm and the event comes off without a hitch next Wednesday.
Today two Garrigan students are in Mason City for a prestigious honor band. Sophomores Gavin Greking and Kandice Roethler were selected to participate in the North Central Iowa Bandmasters Association honor band, which is being held today at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City. Gavin plays the trumpet, and Kandice plays horn. They'll be joining dozens of other top musicians from all over north central Iowa for one of the biggest honor bands in the area.
Tomorrow four other musicians will be honored as they head to Decorah. Senior choir students John Kohlhaas, Eric Cassmann, Jenna Kollasch, and Jesse Bode were all selected to participate in the Dorian Music Festival at Luther College. They'll be singing selections by African American composer Moses Hogan like "Stars I Shall Find", "Music Down in My Soul", and "My Soul's Been Anchored By the Lord", plus other songs such as "This Day" and "Goin' to the Holy City". The festival goes through Monday, and we congratulate Jenna, Eric, Jesse, and John on being selected for it.
Jenna Kollasch also received another honor recently. Aside from music, her main activity is volleyball, and she was selected to the All-District volleyball team. The award was formally presented at the basketball game against St. Edmond last night. Very few other area athletes made all-district, so we're proud to congratulate Jenna on this special honor.
Amid all those activities, we're getting ready for semester tests at Garrigan. Testing will be next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. In some classes semester exams count the same as any other test, but in others they can be worth as much as one-fifth of the grade. To make things a little less stressful, there's a special test schedule with just three classes each day-and everyone has open campus when they don't have a semester test. We wish good luck to everybody on their exams.
Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Jason Lallier and Jimmy Syharath.
All of Jason Lallier's friends call him "Hoss", a nickname he got from the big guy on the 1960s TV show Bonanza. Jason uses his size to his advantage as a power hitter in baseball and a weight man in track. His skills also helped him become one of the Golden Bear football captains last fall. Jason also enjoys intramural basketball. He'll be off to college next year. Good luck, Hoss!
Jimmy Syharath will be graduating from Garrigan at the end of the first semester. His favorite classes include Variations in Literature and Art. He has participated in intramural basketball, and away from school you may have seen him working at area supermarkets. We wish both Jimmy and Jason all the best in the future.
On our Golden Bear calendar this week, there's quiz bowl today at North Kossuth, plus the North Central Iowa honor band in Mason City. Tomorrow intramural basketball begins.
Also tomorrow there's the Knights of Columbus free throw competition, and both Sunday and Monday four students will be at the Dorian Music Festival in Decorah.
Tuesday the varsity basketball teams play Pocahontas. Semester tests begin on Wednesday. At noon that day the senior class will enjoy the Godfathers Pizza buffet as their reward for finishing first in the magazine drive last fall, and that afternoon the quiz bowl team competes in the Trivia Champions Think-a-Thon.
Semester tests continue on Thursday. That noon the sophomores will dine on Subway party subs-the second place prize from the magazine drive. Then Thursday night the freshman and JV basketball teams take on West Hancock. The girls are home and the boys are away.
Next Friday we finish up testing. That night the varsity Bears travel to Iowa Falls. Then on Saturday there's more quiz bowl, with the Bears heading to Eagle Grove.
That's our first "Bear Facts" of 2004. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
