The Bear Facts
September 28, 2024

Good morning! I’m Tate Foertsch!

I’m Kayden Graves!

And I’m Aubrey Meyer! You’re listening to the “Bear Facts”. Thanks for joining us for the weekly update from Bishop Garrigan High School.

Garrigan moved to the eight-man football class in 2021, and ever since then people have asked when we’re going to be putting up those extremely high scores you hear about in eight-man games. The Bears have never been a team that runs up the score unnecessarily. If a game gets lopsided, Coach Wadle always puts in the JV and even freshman players to finish things out. Even with that, last week was one for the record books. The Bears scored 74 points in their victory over Northwood—Kensett, the most points they’ve put up in a game ever and a score that would win a lot of basketball games.

Senior Trayton Cink scored six touchdowns in the game. That’s actually one short of the all-time record, which was set in 1999 by John Mosbach. The varsity combined for eight touchdowns by the start of the second half, and the JV tacked on three more. Even freshman Titan Troyer crossed the goal line to add six points to the Bears’ score. While not every game will be quite as dominating as last week’s, we expect the Bears will continue to do what it takes to win.

The actual fundraising part of Walk and Pray is now over, and next Monday everyone at Garrigan will take to the track for the big walk-a-thon. Students in third through sixth grade will walk at 10:30, and at 11:30 the junior high and high school will have their turn. The little kids from Seton will come over at 1pm, and at 2:00 everyone from Garrigan and Seton will join together for the final session. The day will end with a prayer service at 2:35pm. People from the community are welcome to join us Monday for Walk and Pray.

Bishop Garrigan has a long tradition in quiz bowl, including making twenty-two trips to the National Academic Championships—most recently last summer. Practices have started for this year’s quiz bowl season, and we’re hoping it will be anther good year. Seniors competing in quiz bowl this year are Brooke Ludwig, Thadd Kollasch, Scott Bormann, Trayton Cink, and Sam Greteman.

The quiz bowl team also includes juniors Tate Foertsch, Aubrey Meyer, and Amaury Thomas; sophomores Eva Kohlhaas and Marshall Bormann; and freshmen Henry Bode, Bryden Morse, Carter Cink, and Weston Ehlers. Their first contest will be the long-running Bishop Garrigan tournament on October 19. They’ll also be competing at Algona High and Spirit Lake, and in online contests. Good luck, quiz bowl!

Mr. Beany Bode teaches a variety of science classes at Garrigan, and there’s almost always something fun going on in his classes. Mr. Bode’s classes have taken field trips to places like the nature center, the sewage treatment plant, area farms, and the new splash pad downtown. They’ve also looked at fop genetics, and they’ve even gotten to sample different varieties of apples as part of his classes.

Mr. David Burrow has been at Garrigan longer than any other teacher in our building. He’s been teaching math for more than four decades. There’s a lot of memorable activities he includes in his classes each year. For instance, Mr. Burrow’s Advanced Algebra classes recently went outside and used trigonometry skills to measure things like how tall things like the scoreboards and the lights on the sports fields are.

Mr. Burrow’s students have done this activity each year since some of today’s students’ parents were in school, though in recent years it’s been updated with new equipment like angle sites with digital read-outs. Those were among many gifts to help improve the school that were provided as part of the “Pick Your Passion” program at Gala.

Our Senior Spotlight this week shines on Nick Leerar. Here to tell you about him is Cora Deardeuff.

When the trig class was choosing tall things to measure, Nick Leerar’s group decided to measure him, because he’s just about the tallest person in our school. Nick is a year-round athlete. He’s been on the sidelines for the past couple of football games because of an injury, but usually his height helps him to catch passes. Nick also plays basketball and runs both around the track and through the outfield in baseball. We wish Nick all the best in the future.

Thanks, Cora! On our Golden Bear calendar this morning the volleyball team is hosting their home tournament. Then tomorrow there’s a retreat for the freshmen in confirmation.

Monday is the Walk and Pray event. The whole school session will be at 2pm, with a prayer service following. Monday there’s the Algona High cross-country meet at River Road, and there’s also a volleyball triangular at North Union.

Tuesday the volleyball team plays at Forest City. Thursday is picture re-take day, and Friday the football team travels to play Siouxland Christian. Finally next Saturday is Algona Band Day.

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