The Bear Facts December 13, 2014

Good morning! I’m Mark Fakler!

 I’m Tony Kollasch!

 And I’m Levi Capesius! Thanks for joining us for the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.

 The Golden Bear danz squad has a long tradition of success, and last week they brought home some more hardware. The girls went down to Des Moines and competed in the pom and kick events at the Iowa State Dance and Drill Team Contest. They were the top team in their class in both divisions. What’s more, the kick routine received one of just three “judges’ choice” awards—making it one of the top three of more than two hundred forty entries at state. 

Colleen Conway—Schiltz is the longtime coach of the Golden Bear danz squad. The dancers on this year’s team include Patricia Brandt, Kaitlyn Fogarty, Megan Lappe, Sophia Grandgenett, Kassidy Schiltz, Hailey Kollasch, Courtney Noona, Sarah Skilling, Chloe Garman, Danielle Plathe, Aubrey McEnroe, Kat Willie, Olivia Hall, and Grace Menke. Congratulations, danz squad!


 This week is about the busiest of the year for the Golden Bear quiz bowl team. They had three different events on the schedule. Last Saturday the Bears headed up to Spirit Lake, and they had a very good day in competition. Two different Golden Bear teams were undefeated after the preliminary rounds. The team of Zach Kollasch, Tony Kollasch, Mark Fakler, and Ben Degen fell in the semi-final rounds; while the team of Noah Buscher, Levi Capesius, Andrew Thilges, and Sam Harrington finished the day with a perfect 4 – 0 record.

The Bears followed up their success in Spirit Lake by competing in 3—2—1, a nationwide online event. Fifteen different students were part of the BGHS team, and they ended up with a score of 238. Last year the nationwide average in the fall competition was 175, so that score should put the Bears well into the top half of all the teams in the tournament. We’ll let you know how they compared against Iowa schools once those results are available.

There’s more quiz bowl action today. Bishop Garrigan has both JV and varsity teams entered in the South O’Brien quiz bowl tournament in Paullina. Hannah Bernhard, Mark Fakler, Joseph Espinosa, and Andrew Thilges are competing on the Bears’ varsity team, while Logan Capesius, Chloe Garman, Drew Bacha, and Trevor Darling are on the JV side. Good luck to Coach David Burrow and the quiz bowl team!

The other big event happening today is math team. Garrigan is hosting our own Great Plains Math League competition this morning, with teams from as far away as Waverly competing. Coach Daryl Kohlhaas has Kaitlyn Fogarty, Taylor Illg, Dorothy Kirsch, Tony Kollasch, Zach Kollasch, Carolyn Baxter, Devin Degen, Kylie Fox, Levi Capesius, Ben Fogarty, Josh Hamilton, Danielle Plathe, Ben Degen, Sam Trainer, and Noah Buscher competing today.

At math tournaments competitors take a variety of tests in various formats. In some of the rounds students works together in groups of three, while other times they compete on their own. All the questions are hard, and they test both speed and depth of knowledge. We wish good luck to everyone competing for the math team today.

Last Tuesday Garrigan juniors and seniors registered for a variety of college-credit courses. Special arrangements with Iowa Lakes Community College allow students to earn college credit through dual credit courses taught on-site right here at Garrigan. The most popular courses include Statistics and Psychology. Many students also choose to take literature and composition courses at the Iowa Lakes Algona center, and other students earn college credit through online courses. Because of all these options, it’s fairly easy for students to have five or ten hours of college credit before they’ve graduated from high school.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Jess Marlow. Here to tell you about him is Emily Marlow.

Lemuel Marlow is most often known as Jess. He’s an all-around athlete who is probably best known for leading the boys golf team to the state championship last spring. He’s also a three-point specialist who’s one of the top scorers on the Golden Bear basketball team, and last fall he ran cross-country. Jess has committed to play golf next year at Briar Cliff University, and we wish him all the best in the future.

Thanks, Emily Marlow. On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s a math competition at Garrigan today and the quiz bowl team is competing in Paullina. Some students are also taking the ACT this morning, and tonight the staff will have their Christmas party.

Tomorrow is the third Sunday of Advent, and we’ll have Advent prayer at school Monday morning. Tuesday seniors on student council will go to Mason City for a North Iowa Conference service day.

The school board meets Tuesday afternoon. That night there’s a basketball quad with the Bears hosting Eagle Grove. The cross-country team will serve a meal at that game, which was postponed from last week.

Wednesday we’ll have our student Christmas mass. That night is the band concert for grades 5 – 12, together with an art show. Thursday choir members will be caroling at Algona Manor and also at Farmers State Bank.

There’s freshman basketball Thursday night. The Christian Leadership group will give a presentation on holiday customs that afternoon, and then we’ll dismiss early for Christmas vacation. That night there’s a basketball quad at Forest City.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for listening, and be sure to join us next week for a special show where we’ll be celebrating the holidays here at Bishop Garrigan High School.