THE BEAR FACTS
November 17, 2018


Good morning! I’m Abbi Heying!

I’m Amanda Miller!

And I’m Meredith Tigges Thanks for joining us for the “Bear Facts”. Happy Thanksgiving from us all at Bishop Garrigan High School.

The BGHS quiz bowl team has a lot to be thankful for this holiday. Garrigan has hosted the top of Iowa Conference tournament for four years now, and the traveling trophy for the conference champions has never left our building. That continued this year. Last Saturday two separate teams from Garrigan finished first and third in the conference quiz bowl tournament. The team of Alex Mammen, Logan Heying, Grant Bormann, and Abbi Heying ended up with a perfect 7 – 0 record, scoring more than double the points of any other team in the tournament.

A second team with Bryce Capesius, Gabe Trainer, Aric Laubenthal, and Meredith Tigges ended up in third place overall. The only team they lost to was Nashua—Plainfield. There’s more quiz bowl action today. Five Golden Bears are down in Waukee for the Iowa Quiz Bowl League Fall Classic. Then after Thanksgiving the Bears will be competing in the online 3—2—1 tournament.

Today the All-State Music Festival is taking place down in Ames. Last month Garrigan seniors Bryce Capesius and Megan Bronk and sophomore Joey Trainer were selected to be members of the all-state choir. They’ve spent the past two days rehearsing with Dr. Timothy Peter, a guest conductor from Stetson University in Florida, and tonight they’ll be part of the all-state festival concert at Hilton Coliseum.

If you can’t make it down to Ames today, you can see highlights of the all-state concert on Thanksgiving night. Iowa Public Television will broadcast the concert at 7pm Thursday. This year’s selections include “America, the Beautiful”, “Light Dawns on a Weary World”, “Musicks Empire”, “All Works of Love”, “El Hambo”, “All of Us”, and “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Be sure to catch Bryce, Joey, and Megan on the TV broadcast of the all-state festival Thanksgiving night.

Thirteen members of the Golden Bear football team received all-district honors this year, more than any other team in the area. Seniors Billy Erpelding, Brad Capesius, Preston Kohlhaas, T.J. Schnurr, Aidan Koob, and John Capesius; and juniors Alex Mammen and Cade Winkel all earned first team all district honors. Tristan Furgeson, Eric Thul, and Sam Vaske were named to the second team all district, and Gabe Trainer and John Meis were all district honorable mentions. In addition Coach Marty Wadle was named Coach of the Year for leading the Class A District 3 champions to another undefeated regular season. Congratulations, Golden Bears!

Basketball season is underway. The girls have already had their big jamboree, and they’ll be starting actual games this coming week. While there are no seniors playing for the Golden Bear girls, there are lots of talented juniors on the team. They include Emma Lichter, Maddie Meister, Amanda Miller, Emma Fogarty, Katie Noonan, and Mackenzie Meister. Sophomore stand-outs include Kaylyn Meyers, Gracie Elsbecker, Reese Rosenmeyer, Bailry Meister, Grace Rosenmeyer, Tara Kron, Kiana Book, Anna Berke, and Kelly Baade. Good luck all season long to Coach Brandon Schwab and the girls basketball team.

On the boys side Coach Harry Condoleon will be relying most on his four returning seniors. This will be T.J. Schnurr’s fourth year as a starter, and Brad Capesius, Tristan Furgeson, and John Capesius are also looking for big years. Juniors John Joyce and Cade Winkel also return with lots of playing time.

Another stand-out from last year was sophomore Angelo Winkel. Helping out the core players will be juniors Kurt Condoleon, Andrew Arndorfer, Cameron Baade, Colby Graves, and Marcus Plathe; and sophomores Kyle Schaaf, Isaiah Plathe, Kellen Murphy, Joseph Meis, Kyphus Goche, and Lazarus Elbert. Good luck, basketball!

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on T.J. Schnurr. Here to tell you about him is Emma Fogarty.

As we make the transition from fall to winter sports, it’s a busy time of year for T.J. Schnurr. T.J.’s height helped him win all-district honors as a wide receiver, and now he’s looking forward to another successful season at power forward for the Golden Bear basketball team. T.J. has also been to state as a thrower in track, and in the past he played baseball. He also enjoys art, he’s part of the publications staff, and he’s also helped maintain the school website. T.J. hopes to play college basketball, and we wish him all the best in the future.

Thanks, Emma. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ve got two weeks of events on our Golden Bear calendar. Today there’s quiz bowl in Waukee, and the boys basketball team has a scrimmage. Then tonight there’s the all-state festival concert in Ames.

Tuesday the girls basketball team hosts St. Edmond. Then Wednesday morning we’ll have our annual mass to honor deceased alumni. We’ll dismiss early Wednesday afternoon for Thanksgiving vacation.

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and that night you can see the all-state festival concert on Iowa Public Television. There’s no events over Thanksgiving weekend, but Monday the 26th the boys basketball team will open their season by hosting St Ed’s.

Also that Monday the JJV girls will play at Clear Lake. Tuesday the 27th there’s a basketball quad, with the Bears hosting Belmond—Klemme.

There’s mass on Wednesday the 28th, and many juniors and seniors will be gone that day on a special trip to UNI. Then on Thursday the 29th there’s JJV basketball at Emmetsburg.

The state dance team competition will be the 29th and 30th. Also on the 29th the quiz bowl team will participate in the 3—2—1 competition. Finally on Saturday, December 1, there’s an afternoon basketball quad with the Bears hosting Mason City Newman.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for November. We’ll be off next week because of Thanksgiving break, but be sure to join us two weeks from now for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.