The Bear Facts
May 10, 2025

Good morning! I’m Good morning I'm Sacha Aleach!

I’m Kayden Graves!

And I’m Shiloh Trainer! Thanks for joining us for our next-to-last “Bear Facts” for the 2024 – 2025 school year.

Tomorrow will be graduation day for the BGHS Class of 2025. Twenty-seven students will walk across the stage, including two juniors who are graduating early. This is one of the smallest classes ever to graduate from Garrigan. Our freshman class is one of the largest, though, and future class sizes are good all the way down to kindergarten.

The Class of ’25 chose the white rose for their class flower. Their class colors are the traditional school colors of black and gold, and this year’s class motto is “The best view comes after the hardest climb.” Last Monday the seniors officially announced what they’ll be doing next year. The biggest colleges are Iowa, DMACC, Iowa State, and Buena Vista, but some seniors are going as far away as North Carolina State and the South Dakota School of Mines.

At baccalaureate last Wednesday departments announced their top seniors, and those students also received recognition from the Top of Iowa Conference. Brooke Ludwig was honored in both science and visual arts, Spencer Doerning was the top math student, Molly Peterson won the speech award, and Isabella Waechter received top honors in language arts.

The top social studies student was Alaina Bormann, and she was also tops in foreign language. Sam Greteman won the business award, Thadd Kollasch received top honors in music, and Wyatt Rosenmeyer was honored for vocational studies. In religion Isabella Waechter earned the academic award for theology, and Hanna Merron was honored for Service Above Self. Finally early graduate Zeke Elbert won computer and technical honors.

Several other awards were also announced at baccalaureate. Alaina Bormann, Spencer Doerning, Sam Greteman, Hanna Merron, and Molly Peterson were all honored as top scholars by the Kossuth County Advance, while Brooke Ludwig was honored by the Des Moines Register. Isabella Waechter received the Governor’s Scholar Award, and Hannah Merron was honored by the DARTS organization for her outstanding artwork.

Trayton Cink and Zoe Montag were named the outstanding male and female athletes. Brady Galligan and Molly Peterson earned the Army Reserve Scholar—Athlete Award, and Nick Leerar and Hannah Merron received the Marine Corps Athlete Role Model Award. The Garrigan G-Club Award went to Drew Muller, Daniel Meis, Andrew Lichter, Owen Murphy, and Keaton Helleseth; while Trayton Cink, Nick Leerar, Brooke Ludwig, Zoe Montag, and Molly Peterson all shared the P.R.I.D.E. award.

More than half of the seniors were honored by the Top of Iowa Conference as outstanding scholar—athletes. Those honorees were Nick Thul, Alaina Bormann, Trayton Cink, Isaac DeLange, Scott Bormann, Molly Peterson, and Owen Murphy; plus Sam Greteman, Keaton Helleseth, Drew Muller, Zoe Montag, Thadd Kollasch, Brooke Ludwig, Daniel Meis, and Hannah Merron.

Every year Garrigan presents gold, silver, and bronze pins to students who excel in a wide variety of activities. This year Trayton Cink, Owen Murphy, Griffin Geving, and Spencer Doerning earned bronze pins. Silver pins were awarded to Isaac De Lange, Drew Muller, Zoe Montag, and Schyler Morse.

There were more gold pins than any other kind, and that’s the highest activity honor anyone can get. Ten seniors received gold pins. They were Isabella Waechter, Molly Peterson, Hannah Merron, Alaina Bormann, Scott Bormann, Brady Galligan, Daniel Meis, Thadd Kollasch, Brooke Ludwig, and Nate Leerar. Congratulations to these award-winners and to all our 2025 graduates!

Last Friday Brooke Ludwig, Sam Greteman, Scott Bormann, and Marshall Bormann competed in the online 30—20—10 quiz. We don’t know the overall results yet, but we do know that Garrigan’s score of 1,230 points was 20 points better than their score on the equivalent quiz last winter, when they were the top team in Iowa. Congratulations, quiz bowl.

Last Wednesday awards were handed out to students in various non-sports activities. Some of those were for announcers here on the “Bear Facts”. Twenty-four people have announced our show this year, and twelve of those were on the air frequently enough to earn activity letters. The “Bear Facts” letterwinners for 2025 include Scott Bormann, Trayton Cink, Spencer Doerning, Brooke Ludwig, and Drew Muller; as well as Molly Peterson, Isabella Waechter, Sacha Alesch, Tate Foertsch, Kayden Graves, Shiloh Trainer, and our 2025 “Bear Facts” MVP—Thadd Kollasch.

On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s a home trapshooting meet today at the Izaak Walton Lodge. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and it’s also graduation. The commencement ceremony is at 2pm, and it will be broadcast here on KLGA.

Monday are the Top of Iowa Conference golf meets. Garrigan will host the boys meet at Spring Valley, and the girls meet will be in Belmond. Also on Monday there’s girls track at Emmetsburg, and we’re hosting a junior high girls track meet here at Garrigan.

Wednesday there’s boys district golf at Ft. Dodge St. Edmond. Then on Thursday both boys and girls have the track state qualifying meet at Northwood—Kensett.

Semester tests are begin next Thursday. Next Friday there’s regional girls golf at St. Ed’s, and we’re also hosting a junior high boys track meet at Garrigan.

Finally this week we were pleased to learn this past Thursday that a new pope had been selected. We pray that he may guide the church in wisdom.

That’s our “Bear Facts” for this week. We’ll be back one more time next weekend to wrap up the year and preview the summer events here at Bishop Garrigan High School.