I’m Wade MacDonald!
And I’m Tyler Struck! You’re listening to the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.
While you’re listening to this broadcast this morning, my fellow announcers are actually down in Des Moines. At this very moment, Tyler and Wade—together with Corrie Stetzel, Brandon Donahe, and Jake Kohlhaas—are getting ready to perform at the All-State Speech Festival. We told you last week about their accomplishment—becoming the first Garrigan group in sixteen years to make it to All-State. We know they’ll do another great group improvisation this morning, and we wish them all the very best in Des Moines.
With group speech over, the calendar turns to individual speech season. One week from today BGHS will be hosting the area district individual speech contest. This is the 17th straight year Garrigan has hosted district contest, and this year there will be 487 entries from 27 schools around the area. Garrigan alone has twenty-nine different entries. Acting is the most popular category. Bob Brandenburg will be acting out the scene “Lamentations of a Teenager”, Michael Loebach is performing “Anybody Want My Sister”, and Rebecca McGuire will be acting out “Wrong Number”. Other acting selections include Katie Patterson with “Ballet for Boys”, David Murphy with “Football vs. Romance”, Steven Kellner with “The Image”, and Sarah Schmitt with “I Want to Say Somethng”.
Another popular category is Prose. Janet Kramer will be reading the Prose selection “Dearest Mom”, while Mandy Rahm reads “The Motor-Sickle Gang”. Marian Studer will perform the classic “I Fall in Love”, Beth Becker will be reading “I’m the One Who Stands Out in a Crowd”, and Rachel Foth’s Prose selection is “The Bride and the Butcher”. In the Poetry category, Dan Bormann is performing “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, Angie Kohlhaas will read “The Organ-Maker”, and Lynn Kohlhaas will read a stirring poem about drunk driving. Freshman Nicole Elbert has the final Poetry entry, with a modern rendition of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. In the field of Storytelling, Tyler Struck will tell the story of “The Unicorn in the Garden”. Amanda Freking’s story is “Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse”, and Angie Kohlhaas will be telling about “The Elephant’s Child”. Rosalind Kirsch’s story is “Dove Isabeau”, while Steven Kellner will be telling about “A Beautiful Dream”. Another funny area is After Dinner Speaking, where Chris Kohlhaas will be talking about amusing ways to exterminate flies, while Bob Brandenburg makes fun of Iowa stereotypes.
In group speech, one of our most successful areas was Improvisation. That should also be true in individual. All-stater Jake Kohlhaas heads up the list of improv actors. Also entered in Improv are Chris Kohlhaas, Tony Detrick, and David Murphy. Jake is also entered in Spontaneous Speaking, which is one of the most difficult areas. In Spontaneous Speaking, contestants have just two minutes to prepare a speech on a serious current events topic.
Garrigan has two entries in Radio News Announcing this year—Katie Patterson and Tyler Struck. The final Golden Bear speech entry is in the category of Literary Program, which combines prose and poetry. In that category Amanda Freking will be giving a presentation called “Journeys”. We wish good luck to all the individual speech students, as well as their coaches—Mary McCall and David Burrow.
The Golden Bear girls’ basketball team has really been coming together throughout the season. Last Wednesday they opened up play-offs with a commanding win over Britt West Hancock in the district opener. Senior stand-out Angie Froehlich was the star of that game, but younger players like Michelle Vitzthum, Ashley Arndorfer, and Sara Reding really came on and had a great game. The win means that the girls will be moving on to another district play-off tonight. The game will be at 8:00 this evening, and we encourage everyone to come on out and cheer on the Bears down at Ft. Dodge Senior High.
There have been high and low points to the boys’ basketball season, but the regular season definitely ended on a high note. Last Tuesday the boys finished regular season play with an exciting overtime victory over Hampton—Dumont. The boys’ play-offs begin next Monday, with the Bears travelling to Britt. If the boys advance in play-offs, down the road they’ll likely face a re-match with Fort Dodge St. Edmond. Earlier this season Garrigan and St. Ed’s played the longest basketball game in Iowa history—a seven-overtime thriller—and the Bears ended up with a record-setting win over their arch-rivals. We hope Garrigan gets a quicker victory over the Gaels in the play-offs.
This week’s Senior Spotlight shines on Duane MacGregor and Pam Kramer. Duane is best known for his outstanding efforts in football, but over the years he’s also been out for track, baseball, and intramural basketball. When he’s not playing sports, he likes keeping fit by lifting weights. Duane is an honor student, and he’ll be off to college next year.
Pam Kramer is most active in 4-H and FFA. She’s also played volleyball, worked as a basketball manager, and served on student council. She has lettered in publications, and she has also won honors in business and math. Away from Garrigan you might have seen her working at the Animal Medical Center. We wish both Pam and Duane the very best in the future.
On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s the All-State Speech Festival all day today at Hoover High School in Des Moines. Then tonight the Golden Bear girls play for the district championship.
Tomorrow afternoon there’s more intramural basketball action. Then on Monday the boys’ start play-offs as they play at West Hancock at Britt.
Tuesday there’s girls’ regional basketball. Then on Wednesday there’s more boys’ districts. Finally next Saturday there’s the district individual speech contest here at Garrigan.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for another week. Thanks for listening, and be sure to tune in again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
