The Bear Facts
January 24, 2015
Good morning! I’m Kylie Fox!
And I'm James Quinlin! Thanks for joining us for the “Bear Facts”, where we’re getting ready for Catholic Schools Week here at Bishop Garrigan High School.
Today about two dozen Garrigan students are over in Spencer for the Iowa High School Speech Association district large group contest. Garrigan has eight entries in today’s contest. In just a few minutes the musical theatre selection “Anatomy of a musical” will perform, followed by the mime “Thieves in the Night” and musical selections from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”.
Garrigan also has two readers’ theatre entries: “Stranded” and “The Spicy Chef”. In Ensemble Acting the entries include “One Sneaky Mouse” and “Safari”. The final selection is in the field of radio broadcasting. Performances are scheduled throughout the day over at Spencer High School.
Speech students performing today include seniors Betty Straub, Mariana Pacheco, Dorothy Kirsch, Nick Kayser, and Taylor Illg; as well as Amanda Altman, Hannah Bernhard, Mark Fakler, Taylor Frideres, and Morgan Frideres. Also entered are juniors Carolyn Baxter, Kylie Fox, Joseph Espinosa, and Mariah Bronk; and sophomores Chloe Garman and Levi Capesius. The final performers are freshmen Kat Willie, Tommy Kollasch, Gigi Byrkeland, Alisa Altman, Jenna Boelter, and Noah Buscher. Good luck to Coaches Mary McCall and David Burrow and all the speech performers!
Last Saturday several Golden Bears headed down to Iowa Falls for a Great Plains Math League competition. The Bears had an excellent day. They won the freshman—sophomore division—with Levi Capesius, Josh Hamilton, Danielle Plathe, Noah Buscher, Ben Degen, and Sam Trainer taking first place overall. So far four math team members have qualified for state: Tony Kollasch, Kylie Fox, Ben Degen, and Sam Trainer. The state meet will be held in April at West High School in Iowa City. Congratulations to Coach Daryl Kohlhaas and the math team.
Intramural basketball is going strong. There are four teams entered this year, with captains Mark Fakler, Landen Studer, Miranda Book, and Courtney Kirsch. The top scorer in intramurals so far has been Cameron Langerman, who has scored 45 points in just two games. Andrew Lallier has 30 points, and Mark Fakler scored 27. Other top scorers include Tony Kollasch, Landen Studer, Logan Besch, and Kaitlyn Fogarty.
This is Catholic Schools Week, the time each year when we celebrate our tradition. The national theme this year is “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge, and Service,” and all week long we’ll be celebrating those characteristics. It starts this weekend, when students will be reading, serving, singing, and ushering at masses in their parishes. In addition to Algona, Whittemore, Wesley, St. Joe, and St. Benedict, Garrigan and Seton draw students from the Bancroft, Ledyard, Livermore, Humboldt, West Bend, Emmetsburg, Graettinger, and Britt areas.
We’ll have our all-school mass for Catholic Schools Week on Monday afternoon, and before the service Algona Mayor Lynn Keuck will present a special proclamation. On Tuesday both Garrigan and Seton will participate in a special service project called Prayers from Bears. Wednesday will be Student Appreciation Day, and the high school students will be treated to a day at the movies.
Seton students will have partner activities throughout the week, and they’ll also write thank-you notes to parents. High school students will visit Seton on Thursday and read to the little kids. There will be a staff appreciation breakfast Thursday, and Friday we’ll have a K-12 black and gold day. It will be a busy week, but it should be a fun time for everyone.
Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Hannah Bernhard. Hannah Bernhard is a St. Benedict native Her biggest activity in high school is probably quiz bowl, where she’s been to nationals three times and will also be captaining the team that’s headed to Washington, D.C. this summer. Hannah has also won many honors in band, and she’s active in speech and drama. She’ll be off to college in the fall, and we wish her all the best of luck in the future.
On our Golden Bear calendar this week, there’s district large group speech contest at Spencer today. This afternoon the basketball teams have a quad against Mason City Newman. Because of the speech contest, the boys’ teams will play first, with the girls following.
Catholic Schools Week begins this weekend. Tonight and tomorrow students will be helping out with masses in the area parishes. Tomorrow afternoon intramural basketball continues.
Monday we’ll have our all-school mass for Catholic Schools Week. That night the freshman boys basketball team hosts Eagle Grove. Then on Tuesday there’s a JV/varsity quad at Eagle Grove.
Wednesday we’ll have a trip to the movies for Catholic Schools Week. We dismiss at 1:30 that day for teacher inservice. Thursday there’s freshman basketball, with the boys hosting Garner Hayfield and the girls at Algona High.
Friday the JV and varsity Bears will play at Garner. Then next Saturday Garrigan will host the North Iowa Conference quiz bowl tournament.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for Catholic Schools Week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.