Religious Movements

Gehlen parade set for Friday (10/01/08)
Gehlen Jay fans will take to the streets Friday for the 2008 Homecoming parade to rally their team to "Stuff the Eagles." The parade follows coronation, which will be held at noon in the Gehlen Catholic School gym. The parade starts at 1:30 p.m. with participants lining up at the Plymouth County Fairgrounds. The parade will make its way to Central Avenue and follow that street south to Foster Park...

Local marching bands shine at StarFest (09/30/08)
In a field of 16 schools, the two high school marching bands from Le Mars represented the community well Saturday at the StarFest marching competition in Sioux City. Gehlen Catholic Schools' Marching Jays placed first in Class 1A, at the competition Sept. 27 in the Olsen Stadium...

Gehlen Catholic celebrates Homecoming 2008 (09/29/08)
Gehlen Catholic Schools' 2008 Homecoming 2008 theme is "Stuff the Eagles." A full week of activities is planned culminating in a coronation ceremony and the football game Friday when the Gehlen Jays host the Marcus-Meriden Cleghorn Eagles. The week began with the Homecoming Liturgy service at 8:45 a.m. today (Monday), with special guests The Rev. Gene Sitzmann and the Rev. Rick Sitzmann, priests who graduated in 1953, the last class at St. Joseph School...

Saggau shares stories of inspiration to motivate students (09/26/08)
"Make good choices" was the message Bernie Saggau shared with Le Mars students in grades four through 12 Thursday. "The freedom of choice is to be what you want to be," Saggau said. "The more education you have, the more choices you have." Saggau, past executive director of the Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSSA), was invited by Le Mars Community Schools (LCS) to talk about his life experiences to inspire LCS and Gehlen Catholic School students...

Young to be comissioned for ministry in ELCA (09/26/08)
When Marcia Young graduated from high school, she wanted to attend seminary to become a pastor. There was only one roadblock: the Lutheran church was not yet ordaining women as pastors at that time. Instead, she went to college, majoring in business and theology, married and became a mother, and always remained active in her church...

Gehlen Catholic opens homecoming week with special mass (09/26/08)
Students, staff, parents and alumni at Gehlen Catholic Schools will start their 2008 homecoming activities with a special Homecoming Mass at 8:45 a.m. Monday, Sept. 29, at St. Joseph Church in Le Mars. Presiding at the mass will be two priests, both 1953 graduates of the last class from St. Joseph School, Father Gene Sitzmann and and Rick Sitzmann...

Iowa native earned students' trust teaching on reservation (09/25/08)
Maria Valen remembers her former Crow and Cheyenne students fondly, especially this week -- Native American Heritage Week. Valen, a new high school English teacher at Gehlen Catholic School, spent two years prior to coming to Le Mars educating American Indian students in Montana...

LCS Homecoming parade set for Friday (09/24/08)
Le Mars Community Schools will be parading their school spirit down Central Avenue Friday. The LCS 2008 Homecoming Parade kicks off at 2:15 p.m.. from Eighth Street Southwest heading north on Central Avenue through the downtown area. LCS and Gehlen Catholic School bands will be marching Friday...

'Pride Night' promotes school activities Monday (08/22/08)
"Pride Night" will be shining with school colors Monday as students, parents, and fans from Le Mars Community and Gehlen Catholic Schools celebrate their schools and extra-curricular activities students participate in. "Pride Night will kick off the new school year and promote school unity. Pride Night is a great way for Le Mars area residents to show their support for Gehlen Catholic and Le Mars Community students," KLEM Radio operations director Dave Ruden said. There is no admission charge...

New teachers prepare for first day at Gehlen Catholic School (08/14/08)
Gehlen Catholic Schools are welcoming three new faces to their faculty for the 200-2009 school year. A new Spanish teacher, a math teacher and an English teacher are preparing their classrooms for students' first day next week. Elizabeth Rogers Elizabeth Rogers of Blair, Neb. will start her teaching career at Gehlen Catholic High School this fall. A recent graduate of Northwestern College in Orange City, Rogers will teach high school Spanish levels 1-4...

Saving lives one night at a time (08/11/08)
Keith Garner, once retired, has an interesting nightlife. He saves people's lives. Garner isn't a caped crusader or masked marvel, but when the M.D. slips on his white jacket and steps into Floyd Valley Hospital's emergency room, he becomes a man of action...

Registration open at Gehlen until Aug. 13 (08/04/08)
Registration is underway at Gehlen Catholic Schools for the 2008-09 school year and will continue through Aug. 13. Families may stop at the school during regular office hours of Monday through Thursday, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., to purchase lunch tickets, bus passes, activities tickets and pay tuition...

Merrill's before- and after-school program on hold (07/31/08)
What began as a great opportunity for the Merrill may not be ready in time when classes resume this fall. Throughout the past year, the town has been working to develop a before- and after-school program to provide activities and supervision for students whose parents work longer than school hours...

School's out forever (07/10/08)
A Le Mars landmark for more than a century was demolished Wednesday. St. Joseph School, completed in 1905, was torn down to make way for a new Catholic church. A handful of the more than 2,000 students that studied in the building's classrooms gathered Wednesday to take pictures and watch the school be reduced to a pile of rubble...

Meals packed in Le Mars reach Honduras (07/08/08)
Two containers full of dry meals, many packed at the Kids Against Hunger event at Gehlen Catholic School in May, are reaching their destinations in Honduras. The first container of 285,000 meals was delivered at the end of June to Montana de la Flor, a remote region populated by a group of native Hondurans...

Couple hopes musical notes carry in dollars for prison church (07/07/08)
Foot stompin' country and gospel music will be featured in concert this Sunday in rural Remsen to help raise money for The Church of the Damascus Road. The congregation of The Church of the Damascus Road Evangelical Lutheran Church of America ministers to inmates of any denomination within the prisons in Fort Dodge and Rockwell City...

American Legion Auxiliary announce winners of Poppy Poster Contest (05/21/08)
Sixth grade students at Gehlen Catholic School showed their support of veterans of all wars by participating in the American Legion Auxiliary's annual Poppy Poster contest. Poppy Week is usually observed as the week that ends on the Saturday before Memorial Day. However, Gehlen Catholic sixth graders learned about it earlier as part of a unit on good poster design in art class in preparation for the American Legion Auxiliary Poppy Poster Contest, under the direction of Beth Schlichte...

Mayor observes School Board Recognition Week (05/16/08)
With May 11-17 set as Iowa School Board Recognition Week, Le Mars Mayor Dick Kirchoff made sure he did his part to honor the local school boards. On Monday, May 12, he signed and presented a proclamation to members of the Le Mars Community Schools board of education. This year's theme --"Helping Students Reach New Heights" -- recognizes that Iowa's volunteer school board members are local leaders working to help students succeed...

Meals packed in Le Mars will meet immediate need (05/12/08)
Three weeks ago, a national food crisis was declared in Honduras. On Friday, students, volunteers and staff at Gehlen Catholic Schools worked for 12 hours straight on a project that will put nutritious meals in the hands of Hondurans. At the third-annual Kids Against Hunger (KAH) food packing event, they bagged and sealed about 200,000 dry rice and protein meals that will arrive in Honduras within weeks...

Gehlen Catholic spring band concert is Thursday (04/29/08)
With an eclectic mix of traditional concert band music and Disney tunes, Gehlen Catholic Schools' band students will present their annual spring instrumental music concert this week. All the band students in grades 4-12 will present their concert at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in the Gehlen Gymnasium. The concert will also be a time to say "farewell" to 13 graduating seniors...

Volunteers needed for food-packing event (04/25/08)
Two hours of your life can translate into hundreds of meals for malnourished people around the world. Gehlen Catholic School is seeking volunteers and sponsors for this year's Kids Against Hunger food-packaging project, planned for Friday, May 9. Volunteers will work alongside students and staff to pack, weigh and seal bags of dried rice and protein meals which will be shipped overseas, mainly to Honduras...