THE BEAR FACTS
March 16, 2019

Good morning! I’m! Logan Heying!

I’m Preston Kohlhaas!

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

While the state individual speech contest was scheduled for last Saturday, after another round of snow and ice, Garrigan and almost every other school in this area couldn’t compete that day. A make-up contest was held on Wednesday at Woodbury Central High School. While the Bears had to fight both thick fog and floods to get over to Moville, they ended up doing very well in competition.
 

Garrigan brought home seven Division One or “Excellent” ratings from state speech. Ashlyn Harrington got straight I’s for her prose selection “The Waltz”, and Gabe Trainer earned top marks for “My War with Machines”. Jordan Hansen received perfect ratings for the Literary Program “Images of Women, and Meredith Illg received straight I’s for a humorous poem about Cinderella.

Logan Heying earned straight I’s in Radio News Announcing, and Marguerite Fakler received a perfect score in Storytelling with “The Sneetches”. Garrigan’s other Division I went to Riley Rosenmeyer, who told the story “Three Feathers”.
 

The Bears also earned three Division Two or “Good” ratings at state. Bryce Capesius received a II in Expository Address, Ava Eisenbarth got a II in Poetry, and Joey Trainer received a Division II rating in Prose. Congratulations to Coaches Ashley Meyer and David Burrow and all the Garrigan speech team!

The Golden Bear quiz bowl team also had some more success recently. A week ago they competed in the online Iowa State University Virtual Quiz. Logan and Abbi Heying and Sami and Xander Darling competed for the Bears, and their combined score of 455 placed them in 4th place out of 34 teams competing, behind Davenport Central, Seargeant Bluff-Luton, and Newton. Among the teams the Bears beat were Algona High, Emmetsburg, Estherville, and two Sioux City high schools. Congratulations, quiz bowl!

Yet another group that did well this past week was Garrigan’s Envirothon team. This is an environmental sciences competition, and Garrigan took first place in Forestry and Aquatic Ecology. Their overall score was good enough to place them second overall at the district Envirothon. Aidan Koob, Eric Thul, Bryce Capesius, Lucas Hough, and Grant Bormann competed for the Bears. Congratulations to Coach Beany Bode and the Envirothon team!

Garrigan’s criminal justice club made a special field trip last Wednesday to the Iowa Police Academy in Johnston. Students in the criminal justice club have been learning about different aspects of the law and how policing works, and the field trip to the academy helped them put together what they’ve learned. About a dozen different students participate in criminal justice club.

Next Friday and Saturday the BGHS drama department will present the spring play One Foggy Christmas Eve. The play explores the interactions of different travelers who are stuck at an airport at the holidays. Among those featured in the cast are seniors Gabe Trainer, Ashlyn Harrington, Aidan Koob, Layah DeLange, Sam Vaske, Eric Thul, Billy Erpelding, Emma Thul, Madison Illg, Bryce Capesius, Logan Heying, Caroline Bradley, Laurel Degen, and Lauren Kenyon.
 

The cast also includes juniors Jenna Heinen, Jordan Hansen, Bailey Kollasch, Amanda Miller, and Cade Winkel, as well as many younger performers. The show will be next Friday and Saturday, March 22 and 23. Tickets will be available at the door. Be sure to come out to Garrigan next weekend to catch the production of One Foggy Christmas Eve, the 2019 BGHS spring play.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Layah DeLange.

Layah DeLange is an Algona native who was one of the seniors who sang a solo at pops concert last weekend. She’s also part of the cast of the spring play. Layah has been in speech and music throughout her years at Garrigan. Layah is also active in band, speech, and football and basketball cheerleading. She enjoys art, and she used to be in cross-country. She plans to attend Iowa State next year, and we wish her all the best in the future.

Thanks, Laurel,. On our Golden Bear calendar, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. Then next Tuesday we’ll have special trips that are the reward from the calendar drive last fall.

We’ll have a student mass on Wednesday. Then next Thursday the school board meets. There’s Stations of the Cross on Friday, and that night the curtain goes up on the spring play, One Foggy Christmas Eve.

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