Good morning! I’m Bob Brandenburg!
And I’m Ellie Reising! Welcome to another episode of the “Bear Facts”, the radio show from Bishop Garrigan High School.
There’s big news this week for the Golden Bear girls’ cross-country team. For the first time ever, the girls qualified for the state meet as a team. Individual girls have gone to state in the past—like last year when Simone Adler qualified—but never before has Garrigan sent an entire team. Last week at districts, though, the girls finished second overall; and that was enough for them to be the first Golden Bear team to qualify for state this year.
Sophomore Teresa McGuire has been pacing the girls all season long. Also near the front of the pack are juniors Heather Stence and Angie Kohlhaas. Abby Gervais, Marian Studer, and Melissa Lancaster are the other state qualifiers for the Bears. Together with them at every meet have been managers Rebecca McGuire and Sarah Kollasch—as well as the cross-country coaches, Daryl Kohlhaas and Greg Ahlers. We wish them all good luck today, as the girls compete at state.
The team will be leaving this morning at 9:45 from the Garrigan gym, and we encourage everyone to come on out to Garrigan to cheer on the girls. Then hop in your car and drive on down to Fort Dodge to see the team run. They’ll be running at Kennedy Park, just north of the Fort Dodge Airport. Parking can be a problem at state, so be sure to get to Fort Dodge early. The girls will run in the 1-A state finals at 12:30 this afternoon, and we hope all of you are there to cheer them on.
Today’s other big event is quiz bowl. The quiz bowl team is playing across town today in the Algona High Invitational. It’s the team’s third straight week of competition. Garrigan teams made the play-offs each of the past two weeks, and we’re hoping they’ll advance today as well. The first of Garrigan’s four teams this week includes names you may recognize from football or track: captain Dennis Gisch, John Mosbach, Nathan Frideres, and Bryan McAlpine.
The second team is full of names you probably heard back in baseball season. Scott Black is the captain, and he’ll be playing together with Brad Nelson, Chase Johnson, Ben Lickteig, and Scott Black. The third team includes Captain Jennifer Reinhart, as well as Louie Bode, Ellie Reising, Steven Kellner, and Adam Rahm. The final team this week is captained by Chris Missal. His teammates are Chris Kohlhaas, David Murphy,m Eric Fouarge, and Zac Lickteig. Good luck today to all the quiz bowl players!
The Garrigan magazine drive is off to a good start. The drive started last Thursday, when Garrigan students began to sell subscriptions to more than 500 different magazines—as well as books, music, and software CDs. The school goal this year is to sell over $15,000, with $6,000 of that money staying right here to benefit the school. The profits go to the BGHS Student Council, which in turn gives the money to almost every activity in the school. The magazine drive will continue through Tuesday, November 8. So be sure to get in touch with one of the Bears and renew your magazines through Garrigan.
The transformation of the BGHS website is complete. The site has gone from an unreliable server with a long address to a faster site with the easy-to-remember address “garrigan.unlimitedweb.net”. Garrigan was the first school in the area to have a website. The home page was originally created in 1995, but it’s grown and changed a lot since then. The current site features an on-line school store, frequently-updated sports and activities sections, and links to student and teacher home pages. That’s in addition to old favorites like the alumni section, the monthly calendar, the photographic virtual tour of the school, and our own “Bear Facts” on-line archive.
Kevin Lind is heading up the group of gifted and talented students who are in charge of the school website. Working with him are Chris Missal, Eric Fouarge, Nick Dalhauser, Chris Kohlhaas, Bob Brandenburg, Mike McAlpine, and Adam Cink. Their work is supervised by talented and gifted coordinator David Burrow, and all of them have done a great job updating the website this fall. Be sure to check out their work at “garrigan.unlimitedweb.net”.
This week’s Senior Spotlight shines on Chris Weir and Dean Boever. Here with the scoop on them is Ellie.
Dean Boever comes to Garrigan from Burt. While other students play computer games, do word processing, or work on content for the website, Dean fixes and maintains the chips and wiring that make all the electronics work. Dean has been involved in football, choir, and intramural basketball, and you may have seen him working at McDonalds. We wish Dean Boever the very best in the future.
Chris Weir is an Algona native who has lettered in both football and track. He’s an honor student, and in the past he’s been involved in basketball and band. Chris has worked at a variety of jobs over the years—from shingling and blowing snow to working in area grocery stores. He’ll be off to college next year, and we wish both Chris and Dean all the best.
Thanks, Ellie! On this week’s Golden Bear calendar, there’s state cross-country today in Fort Dodge. The Golden Bear girls will be running at 12:30 this afternoon. Also today, the quiz bowl team plays at Algona High.
Tomorrow is Halloween. Daylight time ends tomorrow morning, and from 8am to 1pm standard time, the Model UN club will be serving a Belgian waffle breakfast at the St. Cecelia’s Rochleau Center.
Also tomorrow there’s the diocesan Catholic Youth Rally in Carroll. Then on Monday we’ll have mass at Garrigan for All Saints Day.
The magazine drive continues all next week. Football play-offs begin on Wednesday, and the Bears should be seeing some play-off action.
On Friday the curtain opens on the BGHS fall musical. You can see “The Music Man” at 7:30pm in Friedmann Auditorium. The encore performance will be next Saturday night.
That’s the “Bear Facts” for October. Thanks for tuning in, and Happy Halloween from all of us at Bishop Garrigan High School!
