Good morning! I'm Teresa McGuire!
I'm Stephanie Hilbert!
And I'm Ashley Arndorfer! Welcome to the "Bear
Facts", the weekly radio show from Bishop Garrigan High
School.
Last Saturday the Golden Bear speech team competed at the state individual speech contest in Sibley, and they had an outstanding day. Garrigan took nineteen entries to state, and fourteen of them came home with Division One ratings. Students earning Division Ones included Bob Brandenburg in Acting, Keshar Nadkarni in Poetry, Rachel Foth and Amber Golwitzer in Prose, Christoph Gebele in Expository Speaking, Steven Kellner and John Kohlhaas in Radio News Announcing, and Bob Brandenburg and Nicole Elbert in Storytelling. Other "excellent" ratings went to Chris Kohlhaas, Rebecca McGuire, and Steven Kellner in After-Dinner Speaking, Autumn Thompson in Public Address, and Chris Kohlhaas in Improvisation.
There was even better news on Monday afternoon. The highest award you can get in speech is to be named an Outstanding Performer and advance to the All-State Festival. Almost every year at least one Garrigan student is named Outstanding, but this year we really hit the jackpot. The Bears earned a record five All-State nominations. Among them was only the second two-event all-stater in school history. Bob Brandenburg earned Outstanding Performance honors for both his Acting selection "My Next Great Adventure" and his Storytelling piece "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs". Othe All-State honors went to Steven Kellner for the After-Dinner Address "Church Ettiquette", Autumn Thompson for her Public Address "Not Like Others", and to Chris Kohlhaas in Improvisation. All of these students will be honored at the All-State Speech Festival which will be held on Monday, April 8 at UNI. Congratulations to them and to Coaches Mary McCall and Sarah
Freking.
Many of the speech honorees will be showing their talent tonight and tomorrow when Garrigan presents our spring play, "The Crucible". The play is a powerful drama set in colonial New England. Among the cast members are seniors Bob Brandenburg, Cathy Hellman, Chris Kohlhas, Michael Loebach, Rebecca McGuire, and Mandy Rahm. The core of the cast is the juniors, who include Sarah Erdman, Rachel Foth, Jeff Hellman, Steven Kellner, Rosie Kirsch, David Murphy, Keshar Nadkarni, Andrea Schiltz, Sarah Schmitt, and Autumn Thompson. Among the sophomores in the cast are Josh Broesder, Eric Cassmann, Amanda Elbert, John Kohlhaas, and Scott Stence; and rounding out the group is freshman Matt Courtney.
The play would never come off without a lot of help behind the scenes. Helping out on the tech crew are senior veterans Adam Cink, Kevin Lind, and Kevin Marso; as well as junior Eric Fouarge, sophomores Ben Kramer and Grant Vaske, and freshman Chris Buscher. There are also seven make-up artists helping out with the play. They include junior Jenna Hansen; sophomores Amber Golwitzer, Rachel McGuire, and Brooke Myers; and freshmen Samantha Kirsch, Renee Taphorn, and Amanda Thompson. You can see all their efforts tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm when "The Crucible" takes the stage. Best wishes to everyone involved, and to director Father Paul
Eisele.
Last weekend the town of Emmetsburg held their annual St. Patrick's Day celebration. As part of the festivities, they held a half-marathon relay running around the lake in Emmetsburg. Four Garrigan Students-John Kohlhaas, Scott Stence, Matt Studer, and Jeff Hellman-won the 13.1 mile race, finishing in just 1 hour, 27 minutes, 56 seconds. That means each runner averaged 22 minutes on a 3.3-mile leg. The team was 20 seconds ahead of the second place finishers. Congratulations to them!
Also last weekend we held the "Final Four" play-offs in the annual intramural basketball tournament. Unlike the college basketball play-offs, there was no surprise whatsoever in Garrigan's intramural results. Ben Meyer's top-seeded team eliminated Mark McGregor's fourth seeds by a score of 97 to 35. Meanwhile Scot Miller's second-seeded team defeated the third-seed captained by Jason Lallier, 74 to 61. The two senior teams now advance to the championship game, which will be held Saturday, April 6, at the Rochleau Center. Good luck to both teams.
This week's Senior Spotlight shines on Adam Raney and Cathy Hellman.
Adam Raney's number one activity is HOSA, the Health Occupations Students of America. At the state HOSA conference two weeks ago Adam qualified for nationals by finishing second in the Physical Therapy Assistant category. Adam is also one of the most active students in publications. He will be off to college in the fall, and we wish him all the best.
When she took the American High School Mathematics Examination last month, Cathy Hellman had the top score in the senior class. Cathy is also active in show choir, she's a member of the math team, and she has run cross-country. She'll also be in college next year. Good luck, Cathy!
Because of the Easter break coming up we've got two weeks of events on our Golden Bear
calendar. It begins today when the quiz bowl team is hoping to compete at Eagle Grove. We say "hoping" because twice this month they've had tournaments cancelled because of weather. We hope this one takes place.
Also tonight the curtain goes up on "The Crucible". Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and in the afternoon we'll have cheerleading try-outs. Then at 7:30 tomorrow night there's the encore presentation of the spring play.
Monday the fourth quarter begins. There's registration Monday and Tuesday nights at the Rochleau Center. Then on Thursday we'll have our annual All-School retreat, followed by Bob Brandenburg's video presentation of the Stations of the Cross.
There are no events next weekend, because of the sacred Easter celebration. School resumes on Tuesday, April 2, and that night there's girls track at Clear Lake. The first week of April is a pretty slow week, but things pick up Saturday, April 6th, with solo and ensemble music contest and the intramural championship game.
That's the "Bear Facts" for March. We'll be off next week because of the holiday, and we want to wish everybody a very happy Easter. Then be sure to join us again two weeks from today when we'll be back to bring you more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
