Good morning! I'm Andrea Schiltz!
I'm Stephanie Hilbert
And I'm Ashley Arndorfer! This is the "Bear
Facts", the weekly radio show where we keep you in touch with all the news from
Bishop Garrigan High School.
Last weekend was Earth Day, the holiday that was started thirty years ago to make people more aware of cleaning up the environment. Every year around Earth Day we have "Stewardship Day" at Garrigan. That day every year we take a day off from our regular classes and help to clean things up. Some groups work right here at school, while others do projects to help out around Algona and throughout the area.
One of the projects we do is the annual "Adopt-a-Highway" clean-up. The Student Council takes care of Highway 18 one mile either side of Sexton. After the twenty-foot drifts of snow last winter, adopting that stretch of road was a real challenge this spring. With all the recent flooding, the area west of Sexton was more like a lake than a field, but the Student Council members borrowed waders and bravely sloshed their way through the ditches.
One of the least known activities at Garrigan is the math team. The Bears compete with schools all over the state to see who's the best at solving problems. Last weekend at the state math finals in Iowa City sophomores Steven Kellner and Rosalind Kirsch and freshman John Kohlhaas competed against teams of juniors and seniors from all over the state. Their age didn't seem to matter, though. They ended up taking third place overall statewide, and for the second year in a row they qualified for the Great Plains Regional Math Championship in Lawrence, Kansas. Congratulations to Coach Daryl Kohlhaas and the math team!
The quiz bowl team also competed last weekend. They finished their season by competing for the Iowa quiz bowl championship at Iowa State University in Ames. The quiz bowl team was also very young-with sophomores David Murphy, Eric Fouarge, and Mike Blocker; and freshmen Amber Golwitzer and Tyler Rolling. Even so, they came within fifteen points of making the play-offs. Overall the quiz bowl team has won two trophies this year, and they made the play-offs at three other tournaments. Congratulations on another great year in academic competition!
We try to keep you up-to-date on all the activities at Garrigan. The past couple of weeks, though, things have been so busy that we forgot about four very successful students. In early April Garrigan's health students competed in a career skills competition at Iowa Lakes Community College. Deanna Kohlhaas captured first place in the First Aid/CPR competition, while Brittany Weir finished second. In the Nurses' Aide competition, Bethany Weir was first, and Tricia Eischen finished second. Congratulations to them and to health teacher Jeanne Wunder!
This past week we started electing the members of the 2001 - 2002 BGHS Student Council. On Tuesday we had the election for Student Body President. A tradition before every election is to have an interview-style "debate" with the Presidential candidates. A lot of this year's discussion focused on possible changes in the dress code-such as allowing boys to wear earrings and adding new colors of shorts to the school uniform. When the votes were counted, football players Andy Kardoes and Andy Meyer were elected next year's co-presidents.
Wednesday we voted for class presidents. Next year's seniors, the Class of 2002, selected Mindy Buscher and Stephanie Hilbert to be their co-presidents. In the Class of 2003 David Murphy and Nicole Elbert will share the leadership duties. The freshman class had a five-way race for president, and it ended in a tie-so they had to have a run-off between the team of Aaron O'Kane and Ben Geelan and Kris Sutter and Stoney Wagner. We'll fill you in on the rest of the election on next week's show.
This week's Senior Spotlight shines on Mandy Roethler. Here with the scoop on her is
Ashley Arndorfer.
Mandy Roethler comes to Garrigan from south of Algona. She has been out for basketball in the past, but this year she chose to be in intramurals. Mandy's other activities have included track and music. She plans to go to college next year, and we wish her all the best.
On our Golden Bear calendar this week, it's Confirmation time for the juniors at Garrigan. This afternoon at 4:00 we'll have Confirmation at St. Joe-Bode, and at 7:00 tonight St. Michael's in Whittemore will confirm their new members.
Tomorrow morning St. John's in Bancroft will have Confirmation. Then at 2pm, there will be Confirmation at St. Cecelia's for students from Algona, Wesley, and St. Benedict.
Monday the ecology classes will be taking a field trip. That afternoon the golf teams take on Algona High. Also on Monday we'll wrap up our Student Council elections.
Tuesday there's boys' track at Algona. Then on Wednesday the golf teams face St. Edmond, and there's girls' track at Eagle Grove.
Next Thursday will be Grandparents Day, which was postponed from Catholic Schools Week due to snow. There's CYO golf at Granville that day, and that night is the spring concert and art show.
Immediately after the show, the music students will be heading into buses and leaving for St. Louis. They'll be spending the weekend on tour in the Show-Me State.
Friday there's golf versus Hampton/Dumont, and also that night the boys' track team hosts the BGHS Relays at Algona High.
Finally this week we'd like to express our condolences to the family of Dee McGuire, who died this past week of cancer. Many of us had Mrs. McGuire as a teacher at Seton, and we were really sorry to hear of her death.
That's the "Bear Facts" for April. Thanks for listening, and be sure to join us again next week for more news from Bishop Garrigan High School.
