The Bear Facts
January 18, 2014
Good morning! I’m Brittany Kirsch!
I’m Jake Hamilton!
And I’m Kara Eischen! Thanks for tuning in to the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio update from Bishop Garrigan High School.
This coming week six Garrigan seniors will be heading on a special service project. Jake Hamilton, Erin Quinlin, Emma Plathe, Sophia Kaduce, Vanessa Dodds, and Hunter Theesfeld will be traveling about 2,500 miles to the central Caribbean. Their destination is St. Jean de Chantel, Haiti, the twin parish of St. Cecelia’s in Algona. The Garrigan students will be bringing medical and school supplies and helping to serve the needy people on the island.
The Garrigan capital campaign fund continues to grow. Pledges are well over our goal, and we’re fast approaching sufficient cash on hand for breaking ground. To keep from incurring debt, we need $1.7 million in paid up funds before we proceed with construction. We’ve now passed $1,550,000, so it’s all but certain we’ll have sufficient money to break ground this coming summer. That means the addition should be ready for the 2015 – 16 school year.
The capital campaign will bring a lot of changes to the school. For the general public the biggest change will be a brand new gymnasium added to the west of our current gym. The state-of-the-art addition will also include new locker rooms and office space. It will allow multiple teams to practice at the same time, and it will also mean fewer conflicts between fine arts events and sports.
When the new addition is complete, there will be a major re-structuring of the Algona area Catholic schools. Fifth and sixth grade will move out to the Garrigan building. That will free-up the old elementary building at Seton, which will be removed to make room for renovations at St. Cecelia’s parish. Besides the addition, there will be several other renovations at Garrigan to accommodate the additional students. If things go as scheduled, the changes should be ready when this year’s sophomores are seniors. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Capital Campaign.
The Golden Bear quiz bowl team announced this week that they will be making their fifteenth trip to the National Academic Championships this summer. The Bears qualified for nationals by winning the Algona Invitational Tournament last November. They also finished in the top four in three other tournaments and were the top team in Iowa in the nationwide 3—2—1 competition last month.
Levi Bernhard, Hannah Bernhard, Zach Kollasch, and Tony Kollasch were on the championship team at Algona High. Other players likely to head to nationals include Jake Hamilton, Taylor Illg, and Devin Degen. All of these players were also veterans of last year’s national tournament, where Garrigan tied its best record ever at nationals. This year’s tournament will take the Bears to New Orleans over Memorial Day weekend.
To help raise money for the trip to nationals, the quiz bowl team will be sponsoring their third annual community quiz bowl tournament in mid-March. Teams with players in any combination from middle school though adult are invited to participate. The event is scheduled for Friday, March 16, and more information will be available soon.
Also coming up in March is the biannual music trip. This year band and choir members will be heading to Nashville, Tennessee. They’ll spend a long weekend in late March seeing the sights and hearing the sounds of Music City, USA. Music students have been selling candy and pastries to help raise money for the trip.
Last Sunday we began the 2014 intramural basketball competition. The staff team is once again the team to beat. They had to come from behind for their first win, though, since a group of sophomores captained by Landen Studer drained three after three to stay close throughout the game. The top student team so far is a group of musicians captained by Jake Hamilton and Mark Fakler. Intramurals continue tomorrow afternoon, with three more big games.
Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Hunter Theesfeld. Hunter comes to Garrigan from the Livermore area. She went to grade school in Humboldt and joined the Garrigan Class of 2014 when in high school. Her biggest activities have been cheerleading and Christian Leadership in Action. Hunter is one of the students who is heading for Haiti on a mission trip this coming week. We wish her well on the trip, as well as in college.
On this week’s Golden Bear calendar, intramural basketball action continues tomorrow, with the first game starting at 1pm. While the Algona Community Schools don’t have school on Monday, there IS school at Garrigan and Seton. We’ll have parish busing that day.
The school board meets on Tuesday. That night there’s a basketball quad, with the Bears taking on the Humboldt Wildcats. The math team will be serving a spaghetti supper during the games.
Wednesday morning we’ll have a special send-off for the students who are going to Haiti. After that the seniors will leave on their annual retreat in Cedar Falls. The retreat lasts through Thursday afternoon.
Thursday night there’s JV basketball, with the Bears playing at West Bend. Late that night six seniors leave for Haiti.
The varsity Bears play at Iowa Falls Friday night. Then next Saturday there’s the district large group speech contest at Algona High.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to catch the show again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
TS 1/17/14
