extended sports coverage for the B-B-E community brought to you by the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper in Brooten, MN. (Address: P.O. Box 250, Brooten) http://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com. Please submit feedback in writing to the address posted above. **This is Minnesota's oldest varsity high school sports blog. We hope to keep it going into the future!
Friday, December 20, 2024
'Joy to the World' at Grace Lutheran...and GAME NIGHT! (VIDEO)
If you haven't already, now is the time to start getting into the Christmas spirit!
In this week's Bonanza Valley Voice, you can read a feature story about the history of Grace Lutheran Church in Belgrade. The article includes the bulk of Pastor Lisa's sermon at Grace on December 8 when they dedicated a sanctuary remodel.
Here's the Grace Lutheran choir singing last Sunday as part of a special worship that included the Sunday School Christmas program:
AND! Don't forget the Bonanza Valley State Bank Christmas customer appreciation they have today from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This was advertised on page 8 of this week's Voice.
Merry Christmas! Sports blogging resumes later this afternoon. I hope you can make it to the home girls' basketball game tonight. It would be terrific to see a packed house for the last home Jaguar athletic event of the 2024 calendar year.
Game updates from Belgrade to follow here... In the JV game, the Jaguars won 42-29 againstHoldingford.
In the varsity girls game, the Jaguars and Huskers are tied 23 to 23. At Eden Valley, the Jaguar boys are ahead 38-23 at halftime.
The snow is falling (VIDEOS) and school is canceled for Monday
By mid-morning today, the snow started to fall across the Bonanza Valley area. A number of churches had already canceled worship services for today, including Big Grove, Crow River and West Lake Johanna Lutheran churches. I expect that later today, an announcement will be made regarding classes tomorrow at B-B-E schools.
Right now I'm going to pull up the Grace Lutheran church Palm Sunday worship, which was held this morning at 9 a.m. in Belgrade. You can watch the service by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wHFzWDvE1s. As of 11 a.m., it has 14 views.
The Sunburg Fire Department and Ambulance Service held a successful spring ham and turkey bingo last night at the fire hall. It drew a crowd of close to 140 people. This is an important fundraiser for their organizations.
Here's a video from last night in Sunburg:
Here's a video from the final blackout game played last night in Sunburg. The winner was really excited! As you will see at the end:
It goes without saying now that spring sports will be on at least a two-day pause. I expect indoor practices to resume later this week for golf, track and field, fastpitch and baseball. Currently, a movement is underway to rebuild the B-B-E Jaguars girls' golf team, and they are on the cusp of getting a fourth player signed up. The team, made up of just seventh graders and one eighth grader, will complete in the junior high level.
B-B-E has not had its own girls' golf team since the 2019 season. That is a long, tough drought. It is time to put that to an end!
This weekend I learned some exciting news out of the health care industry relating to how the government acted in 2020 and 2021. The exciting, actually stunning news is that the government admitted they were liars. This is news for the Bonanza Valley Voice website and not this blog. What I want to comment on is how exciting it is to utilize modern technology and the connections anyone on earth can make via the Internet to access information and hear first-hand from important and powerful people. In this specific case, I'm speaking about Dr. Mary Talley Bowden of Texas, who joined two fellow doctors and sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). From a common man's perspective, we can go on and on about the ills of modern technology. That much is obvious. We also should celebrate the use of modern technology as we utilize it to become smarter and more informed about current events. Something as simple and easy as this Jaguars Sports blog, which was first used in October 2006 for the football and volleyball playoffs, showcases the use of technology to quickly and easily get information out to the public.
**Sunday night announcement: B-B-E schools has announced that the campuses will be closed on Monday with the exception of the Jaguar Kids Connection day care in Brooten. For K-12 students, they get their first bona fide snow day of the 2023-2024 school year...and winter's not done yet!
To help put a book end on the Belgrade August Fest celebration, the Big Grove-Crow River-Grace Lutheran parish held an outdoor worship at the city park on Sunday, August 13. The turnout surpassed 80 on the hazy, cool morning. After worship, a pulled pork lunch was served by the Free Spirits parish youth at the park shelter.
In this video, the community choir performs the final song of worship on August 13:
Going back a couple of weeks, you can click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website to see a video recorded at the BG-CR-G Vacation Bible School program held at Grace Lutheran on August 9 (short link): https://tinyurl.com/pw7rv5xv.
More to come. I'm blogging tonight from St. Mary's Hospital on the Rochester Mayo campus...over 200 miles from home!
Lately the spare time has been tied up by many non-sports related events. Here's a video clip from one recent such event, a ventriloquist show at Grace Lutheran church last Wednesday:
And here's a short video clip featuring the Disney friends of Santa Claus waving their good-byes to the citizens of Sunburg on Saturday night:
Tomorrow night is a school board meeting. The following night, the only home varsity action on the schedule is a girls' basketball game against Kimball Area.
The news room is slowly getting caught up with summer coverage, hoping to get it all wrapped up for our upcoming August 30 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice. We still have a great deal of digital media to upload, including photo galleries from the Belgrade August Fest celebration.
