Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic here
on this July 11th.
2025, have your host James here and we are joined right now by our good friend Matt Zakowski
is with us from Assumption of Schools, Matt, thanks for being here.
James always a pleasure being here, thanks for having me.
Always appreciate the energy and the fun that you bring to these conversations and today
in particular we're going to be able to stretch our legs and talk a little bit about
Assumption.
Now during the school year, there's so much going on, it's such a busy time, it's kind
of fun in the summer to kind of just be able to focus on some other fun things going on
of the Assumption.
One of them, we had our good friend, both of our good friend and really our community's
good friend, Mr. Brickhouser and the other day, I take every opportunity I can to talk to
that man as a side note, like on air, off air, it doesn't matter, love talking about.
But we were talking about the four person scramble, I was hoping if you don't mind, we could
touch on that to kick off the conversation.
Absolutely James, it's by Brickhouser, what more can you say, a man of wisdom and just going
strong?
Yeah.
I also don't know if people realize how funny that man is, he's very funny, he's got
a great sense of humor.
He's got a great sense of humor.
I love it.
His wet is razor sharp.
It really is.
Yeah.
And that'll never change, but the golf scramble, what this really is important James, it's
a fundraiser for the athletic department and that is so important because I know in
the past, when you've had me on her, James, we talked about the value of having kids, the
life lessons they learn, participating in athletics.
And with that being said, there's a cost.
There's a cost to be able to provide these programs, have our kids and our teams.
For example, I was, and these are things you really don't think about.
For example, let's say for our basketball teams, for the boys and girls, even our football,
this to cause the travel to other schools to play.
And there's a transportation cost.
This thing's behind the scene that you're not aware of, to cause for making sure we have
the most updated equipment.
So this golf scramble, huge for us to provide assumption, they still have a quality athletic
program.
And this year, it's July, Friday, July 18th, a week from today, I looked at the forecast,
it looks to be a dandy.
Yeah, it does.
It really does.
Not too hot.
And it's at the ridges, which is always great.
We shout out the ridges, wonderful location.
They do a great job hosting these things that the golf over there is, you know, certainly
a legendary in this area.
My brother comes back to this area all the time just to go to the ridges and golf.
And I do, but I think he might even be a part of this one.
He's in a former assumption alum and proud grad of assumption Nick is with this.
And it's through Nick that I learned a lot of what talking with you and Bob and Randy
Paul, of course, about these things and really gave me an insight to doing this job eventually.
This is years ago that I learned these things through Nicholas and stuff and a lot of that
Nick transferred from Lincoln to assumption in the middle of his high school year career.
And a big reason why he did was the athletic program over there and how much that meant
to him and being a part of football over there and some of those things.
And it really, it brought something to attention to me.
Now with the golf scramble, here is something our community does better than anybody.
We have a good time with a good cause.
And you're going to be able to have fun, you know, we know how much people love golf in
this area and especially at the ridges.
So you're out there, you got your team together, you're having fun.
And as much fun as you're having, you also get to feel even better because you know you're
adding to a great cause.
Now that cause, Matt's talking about there and we talked about this with Bob earlier
in the week.
You know, we support all of our high schools.
We love every single one of our high schools around here.
But I'm not saying anything that isn't known by this community.
We've talked a lot about assumption athletics over the last handful of years and highly
assumption girls team, a basketball team and the success that they have had.
We've talked about the tennis team recently and some of these others and everything.
When we talk about that, I hope other people are also hearing not only first and foremost
supporting these kids and their endeavors and certainly what sports brings to people.
The guys like you and I, Matt and many of our listeners out there know I would have had
no friends without athletics.
I was horrible at making friends.
They saw that I was fast and all the sudden people, hey, mail off and they knew who I was
and all the sudden I got friends.
That's athletics gave that to me.
Athletics give kids such an idea of working with others of what it is like to press real
life pressure situations without the stakes being much ultra high or anything like that
in many regards.
But what assumption brings into this community economically and what these sports bring
in economically?
Go ahead and try to put a price on that.
Go ahead.
I'll wait.
There's literally no number you can put on that.
You can get me all the data you want.
You can't put a number on some of these things.
For every time that assumption is doing well in a particular sport and they're traveling
and people are coming to those games more or they're traveling here to these games because
well, playing assumption matters.
It means something to play that team.
It means something to beat that team.
So it's not just the team coming here.
It's the family's teams coming here and bringing into our economy.
Good teams bring that and assumption is had a lot of good teams.
And here you have an opportunity to impact that.
You have an opportunity to help out with that and just playing golf just having fun doing
exactly what I was just saying, you know, playing a sport and adding to the economy of your
community or a school in the community that adds to our economy.
This is a full circle thing and it helps and it's great to see for these kids to know
the backing that they have.
We support them win or lose.
We support these kids.
We're regardless of what they're doing out there on the field.
It's cool for them to see that support through an event like this.
You know James, excellent points and you're absolutely right about everything you just
said.
I just wanted to acknowledge that it was an incredible year this past year for assumption
athletics.
You mentioned, of course, the girls basketball team in tennis.
I want to give a shout out to Bella Thomas who is just a rare generational talent.
She is a sprinter on our track team.
One to stay championship in the 100 and 200 meter and she's going to be a senior next
year and she's absolutely incredible.
Is she something?
I've been wanting to get her on playmakers.
As much as I talk about other sports, track and field is really my thing.
I love track and field and I'd love to talk to that amazing young lady.
It also blows me away.
I keep thinking, forgetting that she's not a senior.
She's senior next year.
She's a senior next year.
That's crazy.
Just a powerhouse.
And as far as the golf scramble, this one last thing and not too late to enter.
And I was just in the lobby before I came on with you talking to Pamelaura and we just
talked about, and you mentioned this earlier, how many golf scrammels there are supporting
great causes.
And I think something stands out with assumption.
You mentioned it's at the ridges.
You can't be that, but a lot of fellowship, a lot of our alumni are there.
Of course, you have the Burr causers, you can't go wrong with spending time with them.
And a lot of our athletes are there to volunteer as well as the whole set of golf holes.
So it's a great thing.
We have two, starting times, there's a 7 a.m. and 12 30 p.m.
And any more information go to our website or contact our athletic department.
You can find out that information at AssumptionCatholicSchools.org.
Be sure to bookmark that page as well.
And we'll give you the main office number and everything, then give you that email, that
website addy again before we wrap up.
A couple of other things I wanted to talk with you about Matt, as long as I got you in
studio here and we had this kind of free time.
I mentioned my brother and it wasn't until Nick did this and I even knew this was a thing
to be honest with you.
I didn't know you could move to another high school or something along those lines.
And to be fair, and this is something that I've talked with Nick before about, so I'm
not sharing anything here that he wouldn't want me to, a lot of this started with athletics
for him.
And he grew up in an athletic household.
My father was an athlete, all these things.
But we also grew up in a mixed culture, a mixed faith household with my mother being
Jewish, my father being Catholic.
And Nicholas always had a very strong curiosity for Catholicism and understanding it more
and wanting to be a part of it a little bit more, like my Nana and my father and so many
of that.
And Assumption kind of offered that to him.
And after working out some things and it wasn't easy for him to do this.
It wasn't like just decided to and we got him over there.
It wasn't something that was really affordable for a family like in my economic range and
some of those things.
So it was through a lot of good people, a lot of good work that he was able to go there
and he graduated from Assumption.
I won't say the year because I love him and I won't mention that.
But it was such a cool story for me to see my brother not only find this opportunity
there, not only meet his future wife there and shout out to Kim, my sister, not my sister
and law, my sister.
But also find his kind of, for a lack of a better way to put this, his voice in his faith
and finding that that something is something that means so much to him and more and more
I think the older he gets.
It's cool.
It's really been cool to see and it's what my mother and father wanted for us.
They didn't want to put a faith on us.
They wanted it us to find it or it to find us.
And it did for my brother.
That's how it worked out.
And Assumption gave him that.
I will be eternally thankful to that school for that, along with, of course, all the cool
things they do for our community and many of my friends, kids and stuff like that that
have been at Assumption.
It's just one other thing that we highlight when we talk about enrollment with Assumption
and a lot of the things that they do over there, Matt.
You were amazing with that, James.
You really hit so much on the head.
I had a chance to think about it before the show started, so well articulated.
I would say what the listen audience should know is there may be a conception that going
to Assumption you have to be Catholic.
That's not the case.
I've been here a year and a half in my role and I can say a lot of our students, even
a lot of our faculty are not Catholic, but it has that spiritual bedrock, as you imagine
James.
That's so important.
A lot of our high school students are not Catholic that I've gotten to know, and so it's
welcome for everybody.
It's very inclusive, and our enrollment, we're probably at a little over 400 kids, K through
actually pre-K through 12th.
In our locations, we have actually four locations.
We have our early childhood development center at St. Lawrence, our Lady Queen of Heaven
School for pre-K through Sanquet, St. Vincent de Paul, 3rd through 5th, and then at our high
school, middle school, 6th through 12th grade.
We are always welcoming for people that want to enroll at Assumption.
If you're interested, you had mentioned James about tuition, we're a private institution,
so with that being said, the tuition is the cost is obviously a factor of being able to
go to school, but we do have financial assistance available, and I strongly suggest, if you're
interested, that you contact our enrollment director, that's Carrie Menel, her direct
line is 715-422-0901, or you can go to our website and find out more about that.
The last thing I want to say on this, James, what really some people may say, well, what
is the big difference about going to Assumption versus, let's say, some other school, and to me,
it really comes down to this.
We welcome God and He's present in our classrooms, and that's really all I have to say about
that.
If I can piggyback on that, Matt, just a quick stat, a class from 2015 to 2025, Assumption
has had a graduation rate of 100%.
Following graduation, 94% of their students attend college or university or tech school,
trade school, or even entered them into the military.
Those are just really impressive numbers, and that is impacting the future.
That quality education, smaller classroom sizes, passionate group of teachers, it's really
odd.
It's a gem, absolutely.
Bingo!
I just, any chance I can show bingo, I got to do it.
It's something I used to play bingo with my Nana Papa when I first moved to Wisconsin.
We enjoyed it.
Went fun.
We lived in Rome at the time.
Went to the Rome Town Center.
They would have bingo.
I can't remember if it was weekly or not, but I didn't know what bingo was until then.
I didn't know that it was something that kids like my age, I was like 12, 13 at the time.
I didn't know that kids like me didn't play bingo.
I thought it was just fun to play.
It's such a cool game.
But then as I got older and I realized this community loves bingo, Matt, it's popular
around here.
I mentioned it every Wednesday with our friends at the Elk's Lodge and we've got another
great one we want to mention as well with this.
Bingo.
You did a great job with that James with your enthusiasm.
Americans love the gamble.
That's just a fact.
Our bingo is something that is truly unique and I just want to get the word out there
of that we offer it.
You mentioned there's other organizations that have bingo.
I like to think our bingo program is a cream of the crop.
And we have everything organized and coordinated by a group of parents called our rural parents,
a passionate group of people.
There are more like our booster and they do a lot of great things to raise money.
For our schools, our sports teams, but a big thing that they do James is they run the
bingo.
Now we have 15 dates and our bingo is held on Sunday afternoons at our high school.
And as I mentioned we have 15 dates.
We begin September 7th.
Door is open at noon in the actual bingo is from 1 to 3 pm and there's 10 plays and
I'm hoping to get this right because the rural parents are killing me if I'm not
stop.
But there is 10 cards and it is something now.
The way it's run certain schools or grade levels or athletic teams can sign up for one
of the 15 dates and volunteer and they get some of their proceeds.
And usually the proceeds kind of cap off to $1,000 and that's a lot of money.
Safe Vincent DePaul wants to do two bingo dates.
They can use their proceeds to go on a field trip.
So these are again cover costs that us being a private institution, very big and what really
draws a lot of people to bingo.
James is what we call progressive blackout jackpot that it's always the last card that's
played.
Oh yeah.
And if no one wins the proceeds accumulates.
For example the date, the first date in September the blackout jackpot is $1,000 and a thing
keeps adding.
And I remember I was here when I first started off here the jackpot was $3,500 and I was
told it was as much as 7 a couple years ago.
That brings people in and it's really a good chance for fellowship.
You're supporting a great cause and there's concessions.
The role parents do a great job, a first class job of organizing it, you know, and one
thing that's interesting in September.
So our dates in September are September 7 September 21st, October 5th, October 19th.
November 9th in the 23rd and our last one of the year is December 7th.
I haven't looked at the Packer's schedule yet to see if there's any conflicts, but you
can always tape the Packer's names if there is.
So anyway it's just a great fun event and I highly recommend the community and our
listen audience to check it out.
I want to give a shout out to some of the key people that make it possible and this group
of people are part of the role parents.
We have Joe Verrink, Lindsey Gralman, Tony Habersma, I hope I pronounced that correctly.
Amanda Brayton, Joy Crap, Stacy Laramie, I'm sure I'm missing some other people that
are essential, but they are there every Sunday and they are pretty amazing what they do
do.
Learn more about this, make plans to attend Bingo and the golfing about the Scramble and so
many other great events going on in the summer is a great time to look at that calendar
and start mapping some of that stuff out and planning for it.
You can find out more by going to their website, asumptioncatholicschools.org, asumptioncatholicschools.org
that's all one word and their main office number is 715-422-0900 that is 422-0900 be sure
to call that for other, if you can't get them online or anything.
Matt, thank you so much for the time, it's always good hanging out with you and talking.
James, I was a pleasure and thanks for having me and have a great afternoon, you too,
man, you too.
And you guys, thank you for joining us here on WFHR's Rapids Report.
