The Bear Facts
May 10, 2014
Good morning! I’m Zac Kibby!
And I’m Cassidy Vitzthum! Thanks for joining us for the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio update from Bishop Garrigan High School.
We recently finished electing our student council for the 2014-15 school year at Garrigan. We told you on last week’s show that the student body co-presidents for next year are Ben Vaske and Andrew Miller. We also elected class presidents. For the Class of 2015 the co-presidents are Nick Kayser and Morgan Frideres. Zach Boelter and Cady Steinman will lead the Class of 2016. Andrew Meister and Donovan Berte are co-presidents of the Class of 2017, and Noah Buscher and Jenna Boelter will head up the Class of 2018.
This past Monday we elected student council representatives. Reece Wadle and Cassidy Vitzthum will represent next year’s seniors. Landen Studer and Carolyn Baxter are the junior class representatives. Next year’s sophomore class will be represented by Samantha Bormann and Miranda Book, and the incoming freshman representatives are Ben Degen and Megan Wadle. Congratulations to all the new student council members!
Each year the Catholic Daughters of the Americas sponsors their annual Local Education Contest, and for 2014 eleven Bishop Garrigan high school students were named winners in that contest. In the Art Category, Kenzie Keith, and Sophia Grandgenett won top honors. Taylor Frideres, Nick Kayser, and Dorothy Kirsch won the Essay Category. Tony Kollasch’s essay received an honorable mention; while Ben Vaske, Morgan Frideres, Kirk Kenyon, and Carter Hall earned special mentions. Congratulations to all the C.D.A. contest winners.
BBBBB: Tomorrow will be the commencement ceremony for the BGHS Class of 2014. In addition to receiving their diplomas, dozens of awards and college scholarships will be handed out at graduation. This year there’s a new fund that almost all Garrigan students can benefit from. It’s the Frank and Anna Bestenlehner Scholarship. All Garrigan students are eligible for the scholarship, which can be worth several thousand dollars and can be renewed for up to four years of college. The Bestenlehner fund is worth $2.4 million and is designated to help Garrigan graduates.
This past Wednesday we held our annual baccalaureate mass at Garrigan, followed by an awards assembly. The department awards were presented that night. Emma Plathe received the art award; Morgan Muller, Sabrina Book, and Lydia Reding were recognized in Business; Erin Quinlin earend the English award; Kara Eischen took foreign language honors; and Brittany Kirsch and Jake Hamilton were honored by the science department.
Morgan Muller was named top social studies student; Levi Bernhard and Nick Bronk won speech honors, Erin Quinlin and Jake Hamilton were honored for drama; and Nicole Behr and Sydney McNertney received awards for publications. Brittany Kirsch won the band award, and Jake Hamilton was honored in choir. In addition, more than half the class received honors from the theology department. Perhaps the top academic honoree was Jake Hamilton, who earned the Governor’s Scholar Recognition Award.
Several top athletic awards were also presented. Nicole Behr and Brayton Loss were named Athletes of the Year by the Mason City Globe—Gazette. David Klein, Nathan Krieps, and Vanessa Dodds split the G-Club Award. Neal Koob, Chris Loss, Taylor Hovey, and Erin Quinlin won the PRIDE Award; and Kara Eischen and Brayton Loss split the Officials’ Award. The Bernie Saggau Award went to Corey Weydert; and Taylor Hovey and Chris Loss received the Outstanding Athlete and Student Award. Connor Langermann and Aisha Miller were named Distinguished Athletes by the Marine Corps, and Nick Bronk and Alexa Capesius won the Army Reserve National Scholar—Athlete Award.
Many students were also honored for their outstanding community service. In addition to Jakob Hamilton, Erin Quinlin, Emma Plathe, Sophia Kaduce, Vanessa Dodds, and Hunter Theesfeld—who made a medical mission trip to Haiti—sixteen other students were honored for performing an average of 159 hours of service each. They include Lydia Reding, Nicole Behr, Brittany Kirsch, Chris Loss, Brayton Loss, Sabrina Book, and Kara Eischen; as well as Aisha Miller, Taylor Hovey, Anna Hohmeister, Courtney Blocker, Nathan Krieps, Mallory Schiltz, Bailey Kohlhaas, Neal Koob, and Kristin Condoleon.
Pins are also presented at baccalaureate to students who have achieved in a wide variety of activities. This year Chris Loss and Anna Hohmeister earned bronze pins. Levi Bernhard, Corey Weidert, Erin Quinlin, Brittany Kirsch, Aisha Miller, and Kristin Condoleon all received silver pins. The highest activity honor, a gold pin, went to Taylor Hovey, Jake Hamilton, Kara Eischen, Nick Bronk, and Nicole Behr. Congratulations to all the senior honorees!
Our final Senior Spotlight of the year shines on Erin Quinlin and Aisha Miller. Here to tell you about them is Christian Matthews and Devin Degen.
Erin Quinlin was recently honored by the Des Moines Register for citizenship, leadership, and academic achievement. Erin has been to state in cross-country, she’s auditioned for all-state in choir, she’s had the lead in plays and musicals, she was a DARE role model, and you’ve heard her lots of times here on the “Bear Facts”. Erin was one of the seniors who made a mission trip to Haiti last winter. She’ll be studying at Creighton in the fall, and we wish her all the best.
Aisha Miller has also had a very busy senior year. She was on the team that recently broke the school record in the shuttle hurdle relay and was also a key player on the Golden Bear basketball team. In the fall she keeps busy as a cheerleader, and she’s active year-round in Christian Leadership in Action. Aisha is looking at studying speech pathology at UNI. Good luck to her, and to all the Bishop Garrigan Class of 2014.
Thanks Christian and Devin! On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s a home trap shooting meet today. Then tomorrow is graduation. The commencement ceremony is at 2pm in Friedmann Auditorium, and you can listen to it here on KLGA.
Monday is North Central Conference meet day. Girls golf is in Iowa Falls, boys golf at Webster City. Girls track runs at Clear Lake, and boys track is in Hampton. Softball practice also starts on Monday.
Tuesday night is the fine arts banquet. We’ll have our last student mass of the year on Wednesday, and that night the trap shooting team is at Palmer.
Thursday the track teams have their state qualifying meet at Laurens. Finally next Friday there’s boys sectional golf at Britt.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for another week. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to join us again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
TS 5/9/14
