BEAR FACTS

January 20, 2024

Good morning! I’m Violet Bode!

I’m Benjy Trainer!

And I’m Abbie Capesius! Welcome once again to the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.

This morning a bus load of Garrigan students are on their way over to Orange City, where they’ll be participating in the Iowa High School Speech Association district large-group contest. The contest takes place at Northwestern College, and Garrigan’s entries are scattered in four different buildings around the campus.

Garrigan’s first entry will perform at 10:10 this morning. It’s an improvisation group featuring Violet Bode, Benjy Trainer, Sam Plathe, and Brendan Plathe. In group improv students pick a topic and have two minutes to come up with a scene that they act out. Topics could be things like “at a superhero convention” or “on a ship that’s starting to sink”. They’ll be judged on the flow of the story they come up with and the characters they act out.

At 10:50am Tate Foertsch and Thadd Kollasch will compete in radio broadcasting. This event is recorded ahead of time, and the recording is played at contest. Thadd and Tate frequently announce here on the “Bear Facts”, but for contest they’ve prepared a sports program.

At 2pm there will be a Garrigan entry in musical theatre. Sam Plathe, Benjy Trainer, and Izzy Waechter are reprising their roles from the fall musical as they present the song “Good Morning” from Singin’ in the Rain. Musical theatre is judged on acting as well as musicianship, and this particular entry has some very acrobatic choreography, too

The Bears’ final entry is also the biggest group. Thirteen students are entered in readers’ theatre. Their piece is called Bedtime Stories (As Told By Our Dad … Who Messed Them Up). In it Thadd Kollasch plays a father who is telling a bedtime story to little kids played by Violet Bode, Ava Hough, and Brendan Plathe. He makes up a story called “The Boy Who Cried Dinosaur”. Tate Foertsch plays a shepherd boy, and Scott Bormann has the role of the dinosaur.

Molly Peterson and Zach Warren are the boy’s parents, Shiloh Trainer and Aubrey Meyer are sheep, Izzy Waechter is the mayor of the town, and Sacha Alesch and Ava Roethler are police officers. The group will act out the play while reading from scripts. All the groups will be evaluated today, and those that receive Division I ratings will advance to state contest in Spencer.

This past Wednesday a group of Garrigan musicians were part of the Diocese of Sioux City CYO Honor Band. The event was held at Bishop Heelan High School in Sioux City, and it featured some of the top band students in northwest Iowa. Among those participating were seniors Nathaniel Darling, Lauren Swift, Alaina Casey, and Elena Salinas.

Others who were part of the honor band were Isabella Waechter, Alaina Bormann, Molly Peterson, Gabe Swift, Corbin Darling, Griffin Geving, Addison Kuper, Cora Deardeuff, Aiden Lichter, and Spencer Doerning, Shiloh Trainer and Aidan Deitering were also selected for honor band, but they was unable to attend.

Again this year a large number of Garrigan singers are part of the jazz choir. This year there are 17 members of the jazz choir, and they’re preparing for both regional contests and the state jazz competition. Seniors in jazz choir are Ava Hough, Lauren Swift, Madelyn Bronk, Violet Bode, Benjy Trainer, Brendan Plathe, Logan Nemmers, and Sam Plathe. The younger singers joining them are Zoe Montag, Shiloh Trainer, Cora Deardueff, Sasha Alesch, Tate Foertsch, Gabe Swift, Matt Besch, Kyle Bormann, and Amaury Thomas. Good luck, jazz choir!

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Ava Hough. Here to tell you about her is Brendan Plathe.

We’ve already said Ava Hough’s name twice this week—once for speech and then again for jazz choir. Ava is also in band, and she’s been in plays and musicals all through school. She’s also been in cheerleading all through school and was a cheer captain this fall. Ava works hard in all her classes, which is part of the reason she was selected for the honor society. She’ll be off to college next year, and we wish Ava all the best in the future.

Thanks, Brendan! On our Golden Bear calendar today, there’s district large-group speech contest at Northwestern College in Orange City. There’s also a swim meet today in Ames, and there’s wrestling at Clear Lake.

Monday the JJV basketball team will host Garner Hayfield Ventura. We’ll have mass Tuesday morning, and that night there’s a basketball quad, with the Bears traveling to Garner. Also on Tuesday there’s wrestling at Algona High.

Report cards will be sent home on Wednesday. Thursday there’s a basketball quad at Belmond that was postponed by a snowstorm earlier this month. The JJV boys will also face North Union Thursday night.

Next Friday the Bears will host North Union in a basketball quad. It will be Coaches vs. Cancer Night, and we’ll also honor area law enforcement officers at the game. Finally next Saturday there’s wrestling at Algona High.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for another week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in next week for a special show where we’ll preview Catholic Schools Week here at Bishop Garrigan High School.