You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
During this interview, I'm talking with Matt Sikowski, Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations with Assumption Catholic Schools on Friday, September 11th.
Thank you for joining me, Matt, to bring the community an update from Assumption.
And now the school year's already started and you're well underway.
Well, let's dive into athletics.
We've got a lot going on with athletics.
Football is already underway.
Packers start this weekend, of course, but forget about them.
It's all about the Royals from assumption.
And as I mentioned back in August, football team is now playing Aida side.
Okay.
So it's a different transition for our program.
But
The team is off to a raw and start.
There are three and zero.
Oh, three wins.
Three wins.
Three and zero.
Wow.
And they're coming off a victory against Elma center Lincoln.
Now the final score was two to zero.
And when I looked at that, I thought, what a defensive battle.
A safety one was the outcome.
They actually didn't play the game list, so the other team had to forfeit.
Oh, no.
I don't know why it was 2-0.
Maybe it's a point for each half that was forfeited, but we'll take that.
It's a victory.
But we opened the season by defeating Rashalt by a score of 49-0.
Wow.
He
trounced him.
Okay,
a couple on you but that's still a pretty pretty high
Okay.
activities.
Okay.
Phil Hartley's girls tennis team.
Six and all with their matches.
Nice.
Off to an incredible start.
Their next game is an away game, right?
I think those are matches for tennis.
Tuesday, September 15 at Luther.
Girls volleyball up and running.
They're off to a little bit rockier start.
Okay.
They're three and 11 as of right now.
But this is a younger team.
They're learning the game yet.
Sure.
Oh, that's not so far away.
And then across country boys and girls who don't have any records.
Uh, yeah, but I was informed by Joe, our athletic director that the boys are off to a really good start.
There's some talent on that team and the girls are doing well too.
So athletics off and, uh, you know, the kids are, uh, I every day at school, I see when I leave, I see the football team practicing.
I always see the cross-country team running in the downtown area.
So this is good for the kids.
It gives them something to, in addition to school, to focus on their friends and like, mind and activities.
And that's what happens.
And the weather's been great.
The weather's been phenomenal.
I mean,
a little on the warm side, but
Especially for running and for football, too.
But that's going to change quickly.
It's going to change really quickly, Melissa.
But again, this...
Everyone, part of our athletic program, there's just great lessons that they're learning teamwork, perseverance.
And our coaches do a great job of reinforcing that.
Yeah.
There's a lot to learn with, like you said, teamwork, dedication, helping make sure everybody is working on their skills and
talents.
school.
There's a lot of ups and downs.
Let me tell you,
Great.
Well, something that everybody's looking forward to is bingo.
Okay, that's just not that far around the
Not that far around the corner now.
Our bingo is sponsored and organized by the rural parents.
That is primarily our booster group here at the school system.
The rural parents do a lot of things.
as far as helping our schools, our grade levels, our athletic teams.
But a huge thing that they do is bingo.
And bingo takes place at our high school on Sunday afternoons.
It begins at 12.
The door is open at 12.
The actual event starts at 1 p.m.
We have a series of dates, September 20th, as I mentioned, that's when we start October.
We have two dates, October 11th and the 25th.
November 8th and 22nd December 6th.
There's only one date in December.
Then in 2027, we begin the start of back in January the 10th and 24th, February 7th and 21st, March 7th, April 4th and 18th.
And we conclude on May 2nd.
Now what this is, Melissa, it's a fundraiser.
Now it goes towards whatever
grade level or school or athletic team works those bingo dates.
So there are all parents put out a calendar to the school.
And then someone as I mentioned, usually a grade level could be the second grade, could be the girls cross country team says we want this date.
Okay,
get the volunteers to help run the run the event run that day and they get some of the proceeds the concessions and the proceeds from people's bingo the purchase of the bingo cards okay so and that is it's important because for example if you have a grade level they use those proceeds let's say to help pay for a field trip
mm-hmm
Oh, wow.
But beginning on September 20th, it's at 447.
So still reason enough, you guys, to get out there and new this year, free door prizes.
And the parents have gotten gift cards from local businesses.
Oh, nice.
It's drawn at each event.
Now, Melissa, I want to
mention this to the viewing audience.
This is very important, not only for bingo, but for our athletic events, primarily volleyball right now, is that if you want to go to our high school for these events, you have to enter the back door.
That's right, because you've got some construction going on at your
the
entrance and actually I drove past there the other day and you've got nice signage up that lets people know that you know you where you got to go and to enter the building.
We I think we're very well you know have our act together as far as that and so everyone needs to know that you need to enter it from the back door by the back parking lot.
And that's on Mead Street.
That's on Mead Street.
Now the doors are for bingo and for volleyball are
are timed.
So the doors are open.
Okay.
So it's not like we have someone just letting people in.
Gotcha.
But it's important for you for everyone to know that to avoid frustration, you just kind of know what you need to do.
There's no time table set when that project will be completed.
No, how's work going on it, though?
I think it's, you know, it was so needed, Melissa, we had where the statue of Mary was located at the front.
She's removed.
and the brick and mortar was literally falling apart.
So it was a safety issue.
Yeah.
And they're chipping away at it.
Eventually, there will not be any stairs leading up to the doors.
Everything will be handicapped, accessible.
Oh, good.
And again, this is the front entrance is built in the 50s, right, which kind of tells you it wasn't didn't think about those things back then.
No, no, we do.
So it'll be it'll be really nice.
And I think we're hoping that
It'll be open before basketball starts.
That would be nice.
Yeah.
When does basketball start?
Okay.
Yeah.
And I think everyone will be really pleased when that when that is done.
Come out support bingo.
Royal parents do an incredible job.
And I would say the last thing is what is one thing on Sundays in the fall?
Packers, but the way the Packers scheduled is they have a lot of games on Sunday night.
So
oh so you can fill your Sunday
September 20th
calendars for that.
There's only one date in September But you have all those dates listed on your website.
Well, let's take a pause here for a short moment to hear from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Matt Sikowski, Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations with Assumption Catholic Schools, and you're listening to Perspective on 1320 AM, 975 FM WFHR.
Welcome, you're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
I'm speaking with Matt Sakowski, Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations with Assumption Catholic Schools.
And where we left off, Matt, we were talking about the construction happening at the front of the building.
So people need to enter on Meade Street.
And as you're driving up past there, you've got nice signs now up where people can see where to go and how to enter.
But that
construction was necessary for safety reasons and to be ADA compliant.
can't do stairs
yeah.
And the statue, we wouldn't want the statue falling over with the mortar crumbling around it.
That just wouldn't be right.
with it.
So hopefully in the next couple of months, that project will be wrapping up
front entrance will be open
Yes.
But in the meantime, enter on Mead Street for bingo and for other athletic games.
in November.
Okay.
Yes, I'm excited about this one.
This is Mary Poppins, Disney and Cameron Macintosh is Mary Poppins.
guessing rehearsals are already underway
since August.
Nice.
Ryan Houston is our musical director.
He's a young man.
He does a great job.
He works in our campus ministry and is working very hard just getting this thing set.
And this is a significant fundraising event for our school system.
The proceeds, some of it goes towards a theatrical program and all the work Ryan does.
And some of it will go towards what we call fund the need.
And that fund the need provides
financial assistance for projects at our school locations, whether it's new windows, new security doors, our principals let our president know, you know, they're triage list of projects that need to get done and then whatever we would raise help go towards the those projects.
So it really is a very important event for us.
We're very pleased that we have our students involved in this.
And I think our main, we did it last year, we had Sister Act, and that was the first musical we did since COVID, since 2019.
So we're hoping this year we have more familiarity of what needs to happen.
But I think the big push is getting people to attend the shows.
And
that's going to be fairly early in November, November 12th through the 14th, and you're kicking it off with a dinner
on the Thursday night.
Yeah,
But then we have shows on Friday night at 7pm.
And then we have two shows on Saturday, Saturday, November 14th, matinee that starts at one in the evening show at 7pm.
And again, this is
a huge fundraiser for us.
And this, if I could just relate to the viewing audience, come on out, support it just by attending one of the shows.
Well, and it's a classic too.
Mary Poppins is very, very well known.
It's a fun show.
The music is so catchy and fun.
And I bet the kids are just having a blast at rehearsals.
I, you know, I, I think there's without question, I can, my office is on the third floor and I've been hearing the, you know, there's so, there's so much effort involved in this and you can hear the kids, you can hear the music.
And this, this incredible amount of work that these, these kids and parents are, not only does some musical itself, we're talking about the
setting up at the stage.
Oh, yeah.
Costumes, the makeup, all that.
And in details, it's just we need a lot of volunteers to really get this off the ground.
Part of my responsibility is to help raise money for it through sponsorship.
Sure.
And that's through, you know, local businesses.
And you still have sponsorships available?
Okay.
And you're also doing raffle baskets, right?
Oh, nice.
That's a good problem
It's a good problem to have.
But we did well with the raffle baskets and the raffle baskets, people can buy raffle tickets and those are available at all of the shows.
Okay.
And then what happens when we conclude is we draw the winners.
Draw a ticket and you get a winner.
We'll have about 14 baskets of, again, local businesses that give us some really cool
stuff.
Yeah, make a nice donation
And how can people get in touch with you, Matt, if they want to do either a corporate or an individual sponsorship?
Please don't call it 2am.
Don't
Yeah, and if you just Google Assumption Catholic Schools, it'll pop right up and you can find the website.
12th through the 14th.
And if you want to do the dinner theater, the dinner starts at 5.30, and the show at 7, and a Friday show at 7.
Saturday has two shows at 1 and 7.
Well, let's dive into a few of the school items you have.
What is your enrollment at this year?
And that's K through 12?
problem that any school district is dealing with right now.
I mean, we, you know, our graduating classes, you and I have touched on this.
Primarily, since I've been here, I've averaged about in the low 30s, where let's say back in the 80s, if you go on our first floor, if you look at all the class portraits, some of those were like over 100 plus times have changed.
They sure have.
Yeah.
Well, and the nice thing though with a, and this is not nice for maybe the financial end of things, but to have a smaller class size where you have more one-on-one time with the teacher,
kind of a nice feature.
Well, another positive thing coming up is homecoming week.
That's going to happen September 21st through the 26th.
Then you've got some fun events happening in our last couple minutes here, Matt.
Let's run through these.
I'll be very quick.
Okay.
Now, there are some traditional things that we do at assumption that all schools do for homecoming.
I just want to touch on a few of them.
First of all, all of our schools do activities during that week.
Our Lady Queen of Heaven has grandparents' day on September 18th, kicked off by a mass where the grandparents go to the mass.
Nice.
But our high school, we do what we call the torch run.
Torch run, our senior class, goes to the school that we're playing in football.
They start the day before and they literally run with the torch.
It's like a real life back to assumption.
Oh, cool.
live or from miles and miles from us.
So it's not like you're running from Lincoln.
We're not doing the torch one at Gilman.
But this year we're doing something different.
We're starting that in Rudolph at St.
Phillips.
So we have a bus that follows the students with the torch.
Nice.
And they relay and they meet back at the high school.
Longstanding tradition at assumption.
We also have the burning of the A. It's not a bonfire.
We can't do that anymore, but they have like a
an A that stands for assumption and it takes place after the PEP rally on Thursday.
Okay.
and they burn that tradition.
And then we have the parade on Friday, which goes around our high school.
So week of September 21st through the 26th, of course, you can't forget about the dance in the high school on Saturday.
OK.
And the football
game, the football games on?
Well, it sounds like you've got a great start kicked off to the school year here this time, Matt.
We've run out of time.
I'm Melissa K speaking with Massakowski, director of advancement and alumni relations with Assumption Catholic Schools.
Thank you for taking the time
fun.
Okay.
Absolutely.
And thank you to listeners.
joining us for news in our community on perspective 1320 a.m.
97 5 fm wfhr
You're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
During this interview, I'm talking with Matt Sikowski, Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations with Assumption Catholic Schools on Friday, September 11th.
Thank you for joining me, Matt, to bring the community an update from Assumption.
And now the school year's already started and you're well underway.
Well, let's dive into athletics.
We've got a lot going on with athletics.
Football is already underway.
Packers start this weekend, of course, but forget about them.
It's all about the Royals from assumption.
And as I mentioned back in August, football team is now playing Aida side.
Okay.
So it's a different transition for our program.
But
The team is off to a raw and start.
There are three and zero.
Oh, three wins.
Three wins.
Three and zero.
Wow.
And they're coming off a victory against Elma center Lincoln.
Now the final score was two to zero.
And when I looked at that, I thought, what a defensive battle.
A safety one was the outcome.
They actually didn't play the game list, so the other team had to forfeit.
Oh, no.
I don't know why it was 2-0.
Maybe it's a point for each half that was forfeited, but we'll take that.
It's a victory.
But we opened the season by defeating Rashalt by a score of 49-0.
Wow.
He
trounced him.
Okay,
a couple on you but that's still a pretty pretty high
Okay.
activities.
Okay.
Phil Hartley's girls tennis team.
Six and all with their matches.
Nice.
Off to an incredible start.
Their next game is an away game, right?
I think those are matches for tennis.
Tuesday, September 15 at Luther.
Girls volleyball up and running.
They're off to a little bit rockier start.
Okay.
They're three and 11 as of right now.
But this is a younger team.
They're learning the game yet.
Sure.
Oh, that's not so far away.
And then across country boys and girls who don't have any records.
Uh, yeah, but I was informed by Joe, our athletic director that the boys are off to a really good start.
There's some talent on that team and the girls are doing well too.
So athletics off and, uh, you know, the kids are, uh, I every day at school, I see when I leave, I see the football team practicing.
I always see the cross-country team running in the downtown area.
So this is good for the kids.
It gives them something to, in addition to school, to focus on their friends and like, mind and activities.
And that's what happens.
And the weather's been great.
The weather's been phenomenal.
I mean,
a little on the warm side, but
Especially for running and for football, too.
But that's going to change quickly.
It's going to change really quickly, Melissa.
But again, this...
Everyone, part of our athletic program, there's just great lessons that they're learning teamwork, perseverance.
And our coaches do a great job of reinforcing that.
Yeah.
There's a lot to learn with, like you said, teamwork, dedication, helping make sure everybody is working on their skills and
talents.
school.
There's a lot of ups and downs.
Let me tell you,
Great.
Well, something that everybody's looking forward to is bingo.
Okay, that's just not that far around the
Not that far around the corner now.
Our bingo is sponsored and organized by the rural parents.
That is primarily our booster group here at the school system.
The rural parents do a lot of things.
as far as helping our schools, our grade levels, our athletic teams.
But a huge thing that they do is bingo.
And bingo takes place at our high school on Sunday afternoons.
It begins at 12.
The door is open at 12.
The actual event starts at 1 p.m.
We have a series of dates, September 20th, as I mentioned, that's when we start October.
We have two dates, October 11th and the 25th.
November 8th and 22nd December 6th.
There's only one date in December.
Then in 2027, we begin the start of back in January the 10th and 24th, February 7th and 21st, March 7th, April 4th and 18th.
And we conclude on May 2nd.
Now what this is, Melissa, it's a fundraiser.
Now it goes towards whatever
grade level or school or athletic team works those bingo dates.
So there are all parents put out a calendar to the school.
And then someone as I mentioned, usually a grade level could be the second grade, could be the girls cross country team says we want this date.
Okay,
get the volunteers to help run the run the event run that day and they get some of the proceeds the concessions and the proceeds from people's bingo the purchase of the bingo cards okay so and that is it's important because for example if you have a grade level they use those proceeds let's say to help pay for a field trip
mm-hmm
Oh, wow.
But beginning on September 20th, it's at 447.
So still reason enough, you guys, to get out there and new this year, free door prizes.
And the parents have gotten gift cards from local businesses.
Oh, nice.
It's drawn at each event.
Now, Melissa, I want to
mention this to the viewing audience.
This is very important, not only for bingo, but for our athletic events, primarily volleyball right now, is that if you want to go to our high school for these events, you have to enter the back door.
That's right, because you've got some construction going on at your
the
entrance and actually I drove past there the other day and you've got nice signage up that lets people know that you know you where you got to go and to enter the building.
We I think we're very well you know have our act together as far as that and so everyone needs to know that you need to enter it from the back door by the back parking lot.
And that's on Mead Street.
That's on Mead Street.
Now the doors are for bingo and for volleyball are
are timed.
So the doors are open.
Okay.
So it's not like we have someone just letting people in.
Gotcha.
But it's important for you for everyone to know that to avoid frustration, you just kind of know what you need to do.
There's no time table set when that project will be completed.
No, how's work going on it, though?
I think it's, you know, it was so needed, Melissa, we had where the statue of Mary was located at the front.
She's removed.
and the brick and mortar was literally falling apart.
So it was a safety issue.
Yeah.
And they're chipping away at it.
Eventually, there will not be any stairs leading up to the doors.
Everything will be handicapped, accessible.
Oh, good.
And again, this is the front entrance is built in the 50s, right, which kind of tells you it wasn't didn't think about those things back then.
No, no, we do.
So it'll be it'll be really nice.
And I think we're hoping that
It'll be open before basketball starts.
That would be nice.
Yeah.
When does basketball start?
Okay.
Yeah.
And I think everyone will be really pleased when that when that is done.
Come out support bingo.
Royal parents do an incredible job.
And I would say the last thing is what is one thing on Sundays in the fall?
Packers, but the way the Packers scheduled is they have a lot of games on Sunday night.
So
oh so you can fill your Sunday
September 20th
calendars for that.
There's only one date in September But you have all those dates listed on your website.
Well, let's take a pause here for a short moment to hear from our sponsors.
I'm Melissa Kay talking with Matt Sikowski, Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations with Assumption Catholic Schools, and you're listening to Perspective on 1320 AM, 975 FM WFHR.
Welcome, you're listening to Perspective on WFHR 1320 AM, 97.5 FM.
I'm Melissa Kay bringing you news in our community.
I'm speaking with Matt Sakowski, Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations with Assumption Catholic Schools.
And where we left off, Matt, we were talking about the construction happening at the front of the building.
So people need to enter on Meade Street.
And as you're driving up past there, you've got nice signs now up where people can see where to go and how to enter.
But that
construction was necessary for safety reasons and to be ADA compliant.
can't do stairs
yeah.
And the statue, we wouldn't want the statue falling over with the mortar crumbling around it.
That just wouldn't be right.
with it.
So hopefully in the next couple of months, that project will be wrapping up
front entrance will be open
Yes.
But in the meantime, enter on Mead Street for bingo and for other athletic games.
in November.
Okay.
Yes, I'm excited about this one.
This is Mary Poppins, Disney and Cameron Macintosh is Mary Poppins.
guessing rehearsals are already underway
since August.
Nice.
Ryan Houston is our musical director.
He's a young man.
He does a great job.
He works in our campus ministry and is working very hard just getting this thing set.
And this is a significant fundraising event for our school system.
The proceeds, some of it goes towards a theatrical program and all the work Ryan does.
And some of it will go towards what we call fund the need.
And that fund the need provides
financial assistance for projects at our school locations, whether it's new windows, new security doors, our principals let our president know, you know, they're triage list of projects that need to get done and then whatever we would raise help go towards the those projects.
So it really is a very important event for us.
We're very pleased that we have our students involved in this.
And I think our main, we did it last year, we had Sister Act, and that was the first musical we did since COVID, since 2019.
So we're hoping this year we have more familiarity of what needs to happen.
But I think the big push is getting people to attend the shows.
And
that's going to be fairly early in November, November 12th through the 14th, and you're kicking it off with a dinner
on the Thursday night.
Yeah,
But then we have shows on Friday night at 7pm.
And then we have two shows on Saturday, Saturday, November 14th, matinee that starts at one in the evening show at 7pm.
And again, this is
a huge fundraiser for us.
And this, if I could just relate to the viewing audience, come on out, support it just by attending one of the shows.
Well, and it's a classic too.
Mary Poppins is very, very well known.
It's a fun show.
The music is so catchy and fun.
And I bet the kids are just having a blast at rehearsals.
I, you know, I, I think there's without question, I can, my office is on the third floor and I've been hearing the, you know, there's so, there's so much effort involved in this and you can hear the kids, you can hear the music.
And this, this incredible amount of work that these, these kids and parents are, not only does some musical itself, we're talking about the
setting up at the stage.
Oh, yeah.
Costumes, the makeup, all that.
And in details, it's just we need a lot of volunteers to really get this off the ground.
Part of my responsibility is to help raise money for it through sponsorship.
Sure.
And that's through, you know, local businesses.
And you still have sponsorships available?
Okay.
And you're also doing raffle baskets, right?
Oh, nice.
That's a good problem
It's a good problem to have.
But we did well with the raffle baskets and the raffle baskets, people can buy raffle tickets and those are available at all of the shows.
Okay.
And then what happens when we conclude is we draw the winners.
Draw a ticket and you get a winner.
We'll have about 14 baskets of, again, local businesses that give us some really cool
stuff.
Yeah, make a nice donation
And how can people get in touch with you, Matt, if they want to do either a corporate or an individual sponsorship?
Please don't call it 2am.
Don't
Yeah, and if you just Google Assumption Catholic Schools, it'll pop right up and you can find the website.
12th through the 14th.
And if you want to do the dinner theater, the dinner starts at 5.30, and the show at 7, and a Friday show at 7.
Saturday has two shows at 1 and 7.
Well, let's dive into a few of the school items you have.
What is your enrollment at this year?
And that's K through 12?
problem that any school district is dealing with right now.
I mean, we, you know, our graduating classes, you and I have touched on this.
Primarily, since I've been here, I've averaged about in the low 30s, where let's say back in the 80s, if you go on our first floor, if you look at all the class portraits, some of those were like over 100 plus times have changed.
They sure have.
Yeah.
Well, and the nice thing though with a, and this is not nice for maybe the financial end of things, but to have a smaller class size where you have more one-on-one time with the teacher,
kind of a nice feature.
Well, another positive thing coming up is homecoming week.
That's going to happen September 21st through the 26th.
Then you've got some fun events happening in our last couple minutes here, Matt.
Let's run through these.
I'll be very quick.
Okay.
Now, there are some traditional things that we do at assumption that all schools do for homecoming.
I just want to touch on a few of them.
First of all, all of our schools do activities during that week.
Our Lady Queen of Heaven has grandparents' day on September 18th, kicked off by a mass where the grandparents go to the mass.
Nice.
But our high school, we do what we call the torch run.
Torch run, our senior class, goes to the school that we're playing in football.
They start the day before and they literally run with the torch.
It's like a real life back to assumption.
Oh, cool.
live or from miles and miles from us.
So it's not like you're running from Lincoln.
We're not doing the torch one at Gilman.
But this year we're doing something different.
We're starting that in Rudolph at St.
Phillips.
So we have a bus that follows the students with the torch.
Nice.
And they relay and they meet back at the high school.
Longstanding tradition at assumption.
We also have the burning of the A. It's not a bonfire.
We can't do that anymore, but they have like a
an A that stands for assumption and it takes place after the PEP rally on Thursday.
Okay.
and they burn that tradition.
And then we have the parade on Friday, which goes around our high school.
So week of September 21st through the 26th, of course, you can't forget about the dance in the high school on Saturday.
OK.
And the football
game, the football games on?
Well, it sounds like you've got a great start kicked off to the school year here this time, Matt.
We've run out of time.
I'm Melissa K speaking with Massakowski, director of advancement and alumni relations with Assumption Catholic Schools.
Thank you for taking the time
fun.
Okay.
Absolutely.
And thank you to listeners.
joining us for news in our community on perspective 1320 a.m.
97 5 fm wfhr