THE BEAR FACTS
January 21,2023

Good morning! I’m!  Isaac Delange!

I’m Griffin Geving
 

And I’m Joey Doerning! Thanks for tuning in to the “Bear Facts”, the radio show where each week we keep you up to date on all the news at Bishop Garrigan High School.
 

This morning about two dozen Garrigan students are over in Spencer for the Iowa High School Speech Association district large group speech contest. The Bears have five entries at district contest, and the first performed about half an hour ago. Savannah and Isabella Waechter competed in musical theatre with “Stepsisters Lament” from the musical Cinderella.

Right about now Garrigan’s readers theatre is performing. This show is called “A Guide to the Teenage Zone”. It features Avery Berte as a spooky narrator, Ava Hough as a girl who lives in a dream world, Lauren Swift as someone who has everything about teen life figured out, and Molly Peterson as a girl who can’t make up her mind. Haley Nemmers plays someone who wants to please everyone, and Gavin Swift is type-cast as a straight A student.

Audi Crooks plays a girl who has her life planned out, Violet Bode plays someone who is good at stating the obvious, Brooke Ludwig’s character is a girl who is going through a period of negativity, and Ella Schaaf plays someone who is always on her phone. Benjy Trainer was cast as a boy who thinks outside the box, Scott Bormann plays someone who has an answer for everything, and Thadd Kollasch plays a boy who is always thinking up ways of causing trouble. Finally Sacha Alesch and Aubrey Meyer are cast as teachers who have to deal with all the students’ problems.

In the next hour or so two different improvisation groups will perform. The first features Audi Crooks, Benjy Trainer, Violet Bode, Sam Plathe, and Brendan Plathe; and the other includes Gavin Swift, Scott Bormann, and Tate Foertsch. The Bears’ final event will be our one-act play, “The Great Pandemonium”. That show features Garrett Heying as a high school drama director who’s at the end of his rope.

The one-act also stars Isaac DeLange as the assistant director who acts like a drill sergeant and Griffin Geving ad the light and sound technician. Eva Snyder plays an overly emotional and insecure girl, while Sam Plathe is an over-prepared and over-dramatic leading man. Brendan Plathe plays the school principal who thinks he knows everything that’s going on, while thadd Kollasch’s character is a young actor who plays eight different parts in the play.

Avery Berte plays the school’s head cheerleader who is standing in for her boyfriend in the play, and Ava Roethler is another cheerleader for the hockey team. Ella Schaaf plays the props director who doesn’t want to do anything. Finally there’s Tate Foertsch, who plays a character whose claim to fame is T-P-ing the principal’s house. The one-act will be performing at 10:30 this morning. Good luck to that cast and to everyone who is competing at district speech!

Many students will be rushing back from Spencer after the speech contest. That’s because the Golden Bear basketball games against Forest City have been moved to this afternoon. The JV games start at 1pm, with the varsity following at 3:00. The games were originally supposed to happen January 3rd, but they were postponed twice due to snow. Hopefully the Bears will finally be able to get another victory this afternoon.

Catholic Schools Week 2023 is just a week away. The annual celebration begins next Sunday and continues through February 4th. The school administrators will be speaking at parish masses next weekend, and families associated with the school will be passing out cookies after mass. During the week students in every class will be playing trivia, answering questions about Garrigan’s history.

Our Catholic Schools Week mass will be on Monday afternoon, January 30th. Bishop Nickless will be making a rare trip to the far corner of the diocese for the occasion. Other big events include an all-school rosary and a community meeting on Wednesday and lots of fun activities on Friday. We’ll tell you more about Catholic Schools Week on next week’s show.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Sam Bohan here to tell you about him is Gavin Swift . Sam comes to Garrigan from Humboldt. He’s easily the tallest person in the Class of ’23, and the activity he likes the best is probably trap-shooting. Next year Sam plans to head down to DMACC, and he’s planning a career in law enforcement. We wish Sam all the best after high school.

On our Golden Bear calendar this week, there’s district speech contest over in Spencer today. There’s also a wrestling meet at Hampton—Dumont.

Monday there’s JV wrestling, and the JJV basketball team will be playing at Garner. Then on Tuesday there’s a basketball quad with Garner Hayfield Ventura.

It will be Law Enforcement Night at Tuesday’s basketball game, and the music department will be serving a meal that night. There’s also wrestling at West Hancock Tuesday night.

Wednesday is an inservice day for the teachers. Then Thursday the JJV basketball team will be playing North Union at Swea City.

Next Friday the JV and varsity Bears will be playing at North Union. There will be a pink-out that night. Finally next Saturday there’s quiz bowl at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for this week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to catch the show next week to hear all the details of Catholic Schools Week here at Bishop Garrigan High School.