THE BEAR FACTS

February 29, 2020

Good morning! I’m Jack Snyder!

I’m Noah Bronk!

And I’m Joseph Trainer! Welcome to a very special episode of the “Bear Facts”, where we’re doing some celebrating here at Bishop Garrigan High School.

This has been a busy week for the Golden Bear basketball teams, and an awesome one too. The Garrigan girls are going to state, and the boys are knocking on the door. The girls have had an incredible season—racking up seventeen wins and just one loss in the regular season. They beat Mason City Newman and Ackley Geneva Wellsburg Steamboat Rock in playoffs to advance to the regional championship.

Last Wednesday the girls went down to Hampton to face East Buchanan from Winthrop, a town about halfway between Waterloo and Dubuque. The Bears led throughout the game, and they ended up winning by a score of 63 – 46. The win advances the girls to state for just the fifth time in school history. They’ll be playing next Wednesday down at Wells—Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

The Bears will have the #3 seed at state. Their opening round game will be at 6:45 Wednesday night vs. Martensdale—St. Mary’s, a public school from south of Des Moines. If they win that game, the semi-finals will be Friday afternoon at 3:15 against either Bellevue Marquette or LeMars Gehlen. The girls championship would be Saturday night at 7:00, most likely against the top seed, Newell—Fonda. Good luck at state to the Garrigan girls!

The girls are just part of the basketball news, though. The Golden Bear boys are still in the mix, and this could be the first time in school history both Golden Bear basketball teams go to state. After beating Storm Lake St. Mary’s in the district opener, the Bears defeated Fort Dodge St. Edmond last Tuesday. Then on Thursday they beat Harris—Lake Park by a score of 75 – 58 to win the district championship.

The substate game will be the boys’ third game of the week. They’ll be playing tonight for the right to head to state. This would be a return trip for the boys, who also were down at state last winter. The substate game will be at 7pm over at Spencer High School vs. South O’Brien from Paullina. Good luck to the Golden Bear boys. We hope to see them at state as well!

Because of conflicts with basketball, the quiz bowl team has decided to postpone their community quiz bowl tournament that was originally scheduled for next Friday. The tournament has been moved to Saturday night, April 4. We encourage everyone to get a team together. More information is available on the school websites and Facebook page, or you can contact Abbi Heying at 712-260-9805.

Today the Golden Bear speech team is down in Manson for the Iowa High School Speech Association district individual contest. The performances started about half an hour ago when Joe Trainer performed “It Hurts Me” in Musical Theatre. Just a few minutes ago Marguerite Fakler read the poem “The Ballad of the Harp Weaver” and Meredith Illg read a humorous poetry version of “Snow White”.

Shortly after 9:00 Abbi Heying will do a review of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” and Jenna Heinen will perform a Prose selection called “Irritating Teenage Girls”. Later this morning Jack Snyder will compete in Radio, Ava Eisenbarth will read a prose piece about “The 55-mph Speed Limit”, and Noah Bronk will perform “I’m an Ordinary Man” for Musical Theatre and also perform in Improvisation.

In the afternoon we’ll have three Literary Program entries: Jordan Hansen with “The Power of Vision”, Ava Eisenbarth performing “Love, With Sarcasm”, and Abbi Heying’s piece about “Parents”. Later Marguerite Fakler will perform the Acting selection “Waiting” and Riley Rosenmeyer will compete in Spontaneous Speaking. The last performer of the day is Savannah Waecheter, who will read the Prose selection “Scuba Lessons”. Best wishes to all the individual speech competitors.

Last weekend thirteen Garrigan students competed at the DECA state regional conference. Five Golden Bears qualified for nationals. Riley Rosenmeyer was first in her division, and Reese Rosenmeyer was named the outstanding chapter member. Mya Kemna, Grayson Rowlet, and Kellen Murphy also qualified for nationals. In addition to them, Joe Meis, Kyle Schaaf, and Cade Winkel all earned honorable mentions at state. Congratulations, DECA.

Mixed in with all the other activities, the Golden Bear danz squad will hold their spring show tomorrow night. The show will feature the girls’ state championship routine, as well as individual dances and their coed and friends dances. Other schools in the area and younger performers from area dance studios will also be featured. The show is tomorrow at 6pm in the Garrigan gym. The danz squad will also be performing next Wednesday during the day sessions at the girls state basketball tournament.

The Garrigan jazz choir learned this past week that they did better at the regional competition in Spencer than they’d originally thought. The jazz choir is another Golden Bear group that has qualified for state. They’ll be competing in the state jazz competition March 24th in Des Moines. Congratulations to Director Antonia Rupert and the jazz choir.

Because of all the great news from our activities, we’re skipping our Senior Spotlight this week. On the Golden Bear calendar, there’s district speech contest today in Manson. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Lent, and the danz squad show will be at 6:00 tomorrow night.

Monday Seton will have their kindergarten round-up. Then on Wednesday the girls will be off to the state tournament. They’ll play Martensdale—St. Mary’s at 6:45 that night. Because of the game, we’ll have an early dismissal at Garrigan on Wednesday.

We’ll have a late start at Garrigan next Thursday. That afternoon the juniors will have a college fair at Algona High. Then on Friday afternoon there’s the girls basketball state semifinals in Des Moines. If they win that day, the state championship would be at 7:00 next Saturday night.

That’s the “Bear Facts” for a very busy week. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to tune in again next week, when we hope we’ll have more good news from Bishop Garrigan High School

ISAIAH PLATHE: GO BEARS!