The Bear Facts

January 10, 2026

Good morning! I’m Kayden Graves!

I’m Alyssa Haugland!

And I’m Aubrey Meyer! Welcome back to the “Bear Facts”. Happy New Year from all of us here at Bishop Garrigan High School.

Rehearsals are well underway for group speech. District contest will be held January 24 in Manson, with the state contest coming up February 7 at Cherokee. The Bears have five different groups entered. The largest is a readers’ theatre called “Marlin Mississippi Radio”. It features Alice Casey, Amaury Thomas, Aubrey Meyer, Ava Roethler, Gabe Swift, Madelyn Tigges, Sacha Alesch, and Shiloh Trainer.

There will also be groups competing in both radio and television broadcasting. The radio group features Tate Foertsch, Aidan Deitering, and Kayden Graves, and they’ll be doing a sports update. In television broadcasting, Cora Deardeuff, Faith Glawe, Kylie Capesius, Riley Doerning, and Sheila Reding have an entry called “Clock It”.

There’s an ensemble acting entry called “The Committee Meeting” that features Aubrey Meyer, Cora Deardeuff, Harper Nelson, Kylie Capesius, and Lucy Eisenbarth. Finally there are two improvisation groups. Students entered in improvisation are Amaury Thomas, Gabe Swift, Faith Glawe, Lucy Eisenbarth, Madelyn Tigges, Sacha Alesch, and Shiloh Trainer. Best wishes, group speech!

Over the holiday break the Bishop Garrigan quiz bowl team got the official results from the online 30—20—10 contest that they competed in back in early December. More than 1,000 high schools from around the country were part of the contest this year, and the Bears finished about a third of the way through the list. They were the number 3 out of ten Iowa schools that competed—behind Unity Christian and Dallas Center—Grimes. Next up for the quiz bowl team is a tournament at Algona High at the end of this month.

Next Wednesday we’ll have try-outs for the Bishop Garrigan spring play. This year’s play is called Robin Hood and His Merry Men. The play is scheduled for Friday, April 17 and Sunday, April 19. While that’s a while off, we know it will be here in no time, so be sure to mark your calendar for April 17 and 19 to see Robin Hood on the stage here at Garrigan.

One of the big events second semester will be the music trip. March 18th through 22nd the band and choir will be headed down to Florida. They’ll spend time in Orlando, where they’ll both see and perform at the Universal Studios theme park. We’ll give you more details on the trip when the time gets closer.

Also coming up soon is Bishop Garrigan’s 37th annual Gala celebration. The theme for 2026 is “Gala Gone Tropical”, and the event will be Saturday, March 28. Last year’s Gala brought in $448,000 to help out the school, and we’re hoping to match or top that total this year. You can contact the Garrigan development office for more information on Gala 2026.

We’ve already had a lot of snow days, late starts, and early dismissals this school year. We want to remind you that in most cases Bishop Garrigan follows the Algona Community Schools’ decisions on these days. The exception is that when there’s an early dismissal. To make for smoother transportation, on early dismissal days, Garrigan and Seton will get out fifteen minutes earlier than Algona. Of course everyone’s priority when there’s bad weather is safety.

Today Garrigan sophomore Corbin Darling is over in Mason City for the North Iowa Conference Honor Band, which is being held at North Iowa Area Community College. Corbin plays the euphonium, and he’ll be joining some of the top musicians from all over the area for the event. Congratulations, Corbin!

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Lucas Behounek. Here to tell you about him is Hailee Reutzel.

Lucas Behounek is one of the seniors who is a two-time state football champion. He has also been involved in track all through school, and in his free time he enjoys golfing recreationally. In addition to the standard classes, Lucas enjoys art. He also likes classes like Capstone and Creative Writing. We wish Lucas all the best after high school.

Thanks, Hailee. On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s the conference honor band today at NIACC. Also today there’s boys wrestling in Clear Lake and girls wrestling at Ogden.

Monday the second semester begins. There’s a basketball quad Monday night, with the Bears hosting JV and varsity basketball match-ups vs. West Bend—Mallard. Also on Monday there’s girls wrestling at Northwood—Kensett.

Tuesday night there’s basketball at Belmond—Klemme and boys wrestling at Estherville. The swim team also has a meet in Mason City Tuesday night. We’ll have mass Wednesday morning, and the school board meets on Thursday.

Thursday night there’s basketball at Mason City Newman, swimming in Ft. Dodge, and boys wrestling at Hampton—Dumont. Finally next Friday report cards officially come out.

That’s our first “Bear Facts” for 2026. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.