The Bear Facts
September 19, 2015

Good morning! I’m James Quinlin!

I’m Devin Degen!

And I’m Michael Condoleon! You’re listening to the “Bear Facts”, where we’ve been celebrating Homecoming week here at Bishop Garrigan High School.

Homecoming 2015 just wrapped up. It was a busy week, but a fun one. We’ve been celebrating the theme “Welcome to the Jungle” all week long. The dress-up days included Jungle Day—where the winning costumes included Big Bird , Celebrity Day—where costumes ranged from Rosie the Riveter to Caitlyn Jenner, Class Color Day, Safari Day, and Black & Gold Day.

One of the highlights of the week came on Wednesday, when we crowned our 2015 Homecoming king and queen. This year’s queen candidates were Olivia Vaske, Sophia Grandgenett, Johanna Vaske, Cady Steinman, and Kelsey Hovey; while the king candidates were Zach Boelter, Zac Kibby, Landen Studer, Cameron Langerman, and Will Kellner. When the votes were counted, the winners were Queen Johanna Vaske and King Landen Studer!

For more than a decade a big part of Homecoming has been our Battle of the Classes. We took time off from our regular schoolwork on Wednesday and spent time competing in a variety of fun events. The juniors won both sessions of kickball, while the seniors and sophomores split as champions in volleyball.
The seniors easily won the trivia competition, as well as both boys and girls home run derby, hot dog eating, Ultimate Frisbee, boys Gatorade chug, egg toss, and girls tug-of-war. The juniors won bean bag toss, Twister, pie eating, and boys tug of war; and the sophomore class won girls Gatorade chug, the egg carry relay, and the hoop decorations.

Golden Bear cross-country team began Homecoming week with a meet at Emmetsburg. While it was a small meet, the Bears were proud to have five medalists. Kelsey Hovey finished in 5th place in the girls race. Livia Miller was 8th, Miranda Book was 9th, and Isabelle Davis earned a medal for 15th place. On the boys side Ryan Kenyon medaled for finishing 6th place overall. Congratulations, Bears!

The volleyball has one of their biggest events of the season coming up tomorrow. They’ll be headed to Gehlen Catholic High School in LeMars for the big CYO Tournament. The Bears will play their first game at noon vs. Gehlen. At 2:15 they take on Ft. Dodge St. Edmond, and later in the afternoon they play Sioux City Heelan, Storm Lake St. Mary’s, and Remsen St. Mary’s. Good luck at CYO to the volleyball team!

The Golden Bear football team is off to their best start in more than a decade. After beating class 2-A St. Ed’s the first week of the season, the Bears got a big win in week two over Class 1-A Pocahontas. Last week they began district play in Class A, with a 47 – 6 rout of Nashua—Plainfield. Even the JV managed to score in last week’s game. We know the Bears will continue to play tough, and we hope they continue to win all through the season.

We learned last week that five members of the Golden Bear danz squad were selected to be part of the All-Iowa Honor Drill Team. Making the cut were Courtney Noonan, Danielle Plathe, Sarah Skilling, Chloe Garman, and Hailey Kollasch. Congratulations to them and to Coach Colleen Conwahy—Schiltz.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on our Homecoming Queen, Johanna Vaske. Here to tell you about her is Andrew Lallier.

Johanna Vaske is a Bancroft native who will graduate with sixteen athletic letters and fifteen letters in the fine arts. She’s a volleyball captain, who was also first team all state in basketball, won a state championship in track, and earned all-district honors in softball. Johanna is a National Honor Society member who has earned Division I ratings in band and choir and is also active n drama. She’ll be off to college next year, where she plans to major in nursing or athletic training. Congratulations to our Homecoming queen, Johanna Vaske!

Thanks, Andrew! On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s a JV volleyball tournament at Algona High today and also a freshman tournament at North Union. Tomorrow the varsity volleyball team plays in the CYO tournament at LeMars Gehlen.

Monday the cross-country team runs at Humboldt, and there’s also JV football at Eagle Grove. Tuesday is the fourth turn-in goal in our calendar drive, and that night the volleyball team hosts North Iowa.

Fall begins next Wednesday, and we’ll have mass that morning. Next Friday the football team has their toughest district game, as they travel to Belmond—Klemme. Finally next Saturday the volleyball team will host their home tournament.

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