The Bear Facts
October 25, 2025


Good morning! I’m Tate Foertsch!

I’m Sacha Alesch!

And I’m Aubrey Meyer! Welcome to our last “Bear Facts” for October, where we’re getting ready for Halloween here at Bishop Garrigan High School.

This morning thousands of the best high school vocalists from all over Iowa will be auditioning for the All-State Music Festival. Five members of the Bishop Garrigan choir are over in LeMars for all-state Amaury Thomas, Shiloh Trainer, Abby Deardeuff, Rachel Kahle, and Anaya Thomas have been preparing all through the fall and will be auditioning today. They’ve been working with choir director Mrs. Abby Matthas and with outside professionals.

The singers have prepared six songs from the all-state program, including “Insanae et Vanae”, which Amaury Thomas says is his favorite, as well as “I Am Glad”, “Nunc Dimitis”, “Yotin”, “America, the Beautiful”, and Battle Hymn of the Republic”. They could be asked to sing parts of any of those songs today.

Everyone will sing once for the audition, and judges can recall singers to hear them again. Some all-staters are selected right away, and others after a series of call-backs. The judges will select twenty-nine sopranos, twenty-five altos, twenty-four tenors, and twenty-two bass singers from the LeMars site to perform at the all-state festival, which will be held next month in Ames.

Enrollment has been going up at Garrigan and especially at Seton Grade School. In response to this the school is starting a new capital campaign to help improve our facilities for the future. The biggest part of this will be additional classroom space at Seton, but the campaign also includes improvements to the football bleachers, weight room, and restroom facilities. There have already been several large donations to the project, and more information will be going out in the coming weeks.

The Golden Bear volleyball team finished their season this past week. They had a big match up at Armstrong, where they defeated North Union Monday night in the first round of regional play. That advanced them to the second round, where they faced the top-ranked team in the state, St. Ansgar. The Bears played hard, but unfortunately they fell in that game.

With the end of the season, the Bears say goodbye to four seniors who have been at the core of the team—Emmi Bartolo, Alyssa Haugland, Allison Denker, and Hailee Reutzel. They played well throughout 2025 and had a great career on the Golden Bear volleyball team.

We had to record this week’s show before the results were in from our other fall sports. The cross-country team ran Thursday night in the state-qualifying meet. Sophomore Julia Swift has been running times that were among the best in the area, and we’re hoping she did well enough to qualify for state.

The Golden Bear football team continued to be top-ranked in the 8-player class by the Iowa High School Athletic Association, as well as in most other polls. They started the post-season with a rematch against Kingsley—Pierson last night. The second round parings will come out this morning, and we’re hoping the Bears continue their domination all the way to the Dome.


The Golden Bear cheerleaders have been very busy this fall. They’ve done jumping jacks to reflect the points the Bears scored after every touchdown this season. The final total during the regular season games was 2,218 jumping jacks. Now competition season begins for the cheerleaders. Tomorrow they’ll be competing at Iowa Central, and next weekend is the state cheer competition.

There are twelve cheerleaders on the competition squad. They include seniors Addison Kuper, Ava Snider, Sacha Alesch, Ava Roether, and Aubrey Meyer. Cheering along with them are Harper Nelson, Delaney Fessler—Arndorfer, Lilly Erpelding—Wickman, Brooklyn Berte, Piper Roethler, Avery Culbertson, and Olivia Roethler. Good luck in competition, cheerleaders!

It’s a busy time of year for the Golden Bear quiz bowl team. They started their season last weekend with their home tournament, where the Bears just missed making playoffs. Next Friday they’ll compete in the online Knowledge Master Open, and two weeks from now they’ll be hosting the Top of Iowa Conference tournament. Good luck, quiz bowl!

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Hailee Reutzel. Here to tell you about her is Emmi Bartolo.

Hailee Reutzel is one of the seniors who has been on the volleyball team. She’s also active in trapshooting, golf, DECA, and student council. Away from Garrigan she works as a certified nurse’s aide at the Good Samaritan Center, and she enjoys cooking and boating. After high school she plans to attend nursing school. We wish Hailee all the best in the future.

Thanks, Emmi! On our Golden Bear calendar, there’s all-state music auditions today in LeMars. Then tomorrow is the Triton Cheer Competition at Iowa Central in Ft. Dodge.

Monday we’ll have a 2:15 dismissal, and after school there will be parent—teacher conferences. First quarter grade reports will officially come out on Tuesday, and there’s a swim meet at Perry that night.

We’ll have mass Wednesday morning. Thursday there’s more conferences. There’s no school on Friday. The quiz bowl team will have the Knowledge Master that morning, and Friday night instead of trick-or-treating, we should be hosting the second round of football playoffs.
 

That’s the “Bear Facts” for October. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.