And I’m Ellie Reising! Welcome once again to the “Bear Facts”, the weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School!
Speech season is here again. This morning forty-seven Garrigan students are down in Fort Dodge for the Iowa High School Speech Association district large-group contest. Directors Mary McCall and Amanda Stewart have been working with the large-group speech students since before Christmas, and in spite of illness and weather, everybody has been working hard to get their performances just right. They’ll see how well they’ve done today as they compete against other area students at Fort Dodge Senior High.
This year’s Garrigan one-act play is the heart-wrenching drama “A Rose for Emily”. Amanda Freking will be playing the title character, and backing her up are Angie Kohlhaas, Wade MacDonald, Angie Weber, and Tyler Struck. The rest of the one-act cast includes Brandon Donahe, Katie Patterson, Dan Bormann, and my fellow announcer today on “Bear Facts”—Bob Brandenburg.
Two different groups of Garrigan students will be competing in group improvisation, where contestants have just two minutes to come up with an idea for a scene they act out. The first group is made up of Jake Kohlhaas, Tyler Struck, Wade MacDonald, Brandon Donahe, and Corrie Stetzel. Garrigan’s other improv. players are Chris Kohlhaas, Mark Rasmussen, Mandy Rahm, Adam Rahm, and Sarah Kollasch.
One of the toughest large-group categories is “Readers’ Theatre”. In that category contestants have to get across the idea of a play without using any costumes, set, or props—and with very limited movement. They mostly have to use their voices and faces to portray the characters in the play. Marian Studer, Sara Reding, Rebecca McGuire, Lynn Kohlhaas, Dan Bormann, and Mike Loebach are the varsity Readers’ Theatre team. They will be presenting a piece called “Parted on Her Wedding Morn—or—More to Be Pitied than Scorned”.
The varsity Bears have three entries in Ensemble Acting. That’s the category where a small group of students acts out a short scene from a play. The first entry is the modern classic “The American Way”. It will star my “Bear Facts” co-anchor Ellie Reising—together with Mark Rasmussen, Jennifer Faber, Chris Kohlhaas, and Lynn Kohlhaas. “The Day after Forever” will be presented by Amanda Freking, Mandy Rahm, Marian Studer, Adam Rahm, and Angie Kohlhaas; and “Who’s Out There” features Angie Weber, Jake Kohlhaas, and me—Bob Brandenburg.
In addition to all the varsity entries, Garrigan has a huge number of freshmen out for speech this year. The freshmen have five entries at speech contest, where they’ll be competing head-to-head against students of all ages from other schools. One of the freshman entries is in group improvisation. The students competing there are Sylvia Weber, Andrea Schiltz, Rosalind Kirsch, and David Murphy.
In Ensemble Acting, there are two freshman entries. One is a scene from the Broadway classic “Harvey”. Tyler Rahm will star as Elwood P. Dowd, with Autumn Thompson, Sylvia Weber, Kim Frideres, and Sarah Erdman backing him up in the cast. The other freshman ensemble is called “Bubbles Goes to School”. The “Bear Facts” own Sarah Schmitt will play Bubbles, with Rachel Foth and Keshar Nadkarni co-starring in the show.
The freshmen will also present a Readers’ Theatre entitled “Quiet, Please”. Its cast includes another “Bear Facts” regular—Steven Kellner—together with David Murphy, Rosalind Kirsch, Rachel Foth, Keshar Nadkarni, Kim Frideres, and Autumn Thompson. Finally, the freshmen will be competing in Choral Reading, where they blend their voices together to make the presentation more interesting. This year’s choral reading is the first-love story “A Beautiful Friendship”. Steven Kellner and Amanda Wolf will play the main characters. Backing them up are Tyler Rahm, Sarah Erdman, Beth Becker, Jenna Hansen, Janel Richter, Maria Paterson, and Nellie Fowler.
We wish the very best to all the speech team—break a leg, everybody! The public is invited to watch all the performances at speech contest, which will continue all day long at Fort Dodge Senior High. If you can’t make it down to Fort Dodge to see the speech students, you can catch their encore performance at “An Evening of Theatre” during Catholic Schools Week. The show will be Monday night, January 31, at 6pm in the Garrigan gym.
Intramural basketball continued last week. One-fifth of the way through the season Chad Mescher’s team is at the top of the standings, with a perfect 2-0 record. Junior stand-out Steve Courtney is the leading scorer so far in intramurals. Last week’s biggest blow-out was when Eric Becker’s team spanked Chris Kohlhaas’ team 144 to 19. The action continues tomorrow with three more big games.
This week’s Senior Spotlight shines on Louie Bode. If you’re a regular “Bear Facts” listener, you’ve probably heard Louie’s voice; he’s been announcing off and on since he was a freshman. Louie’s biggest activities are band, choir, and drama, and he also went to nationals in quiz bowl. Louie was also part of last year’s championship intramural basketball team, and he’s out for intramurals again in 2000. Louie will be a college man next year, and we wish him the very best of luck.
Our Golden Bear calendar this week starts this morning, with the large group speech contest in Fort Dodge. Also today there’s the Meistersingers Choral Festival at Wartburg College in Waverly, and all weekend long there will be a “Search” training institute at Garrigan.
Intramurals resume at 12:45 tomorrow afternoon. Monday the freshman basketball teams host Algona High. Then on Tuesday the JV and varsity Bears play at Eagle Grove.
Wednesday there’s more basketball, with the Bears hosting West Bend/Mallard. Later that night we’ll have a girls’ game against North Kossuth that was twice re-scheduled–once for the whooping cough and once for weather. Then on Thursday we’ll be dismissing early for a faculty in-service session.
Finally next Friday there’s a four-game basketball match-up, with Garrigan hosting Clarion/Goldfield. During the games publications students will be sponsoring a pork patty meal in the cafeteria.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for another week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in next week, when we’ll tell you about all the special events of Catholic Schools Week here at Bishop Garrigan High School.
