Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rabbits of Port, probably brought to you by Crockett
Septic for this August 8th, 2025, have your host James here, and we're talking to
Assumption Schools today, got a good friend Matt Sikowski and with us Matt, good to see
how you been.
Great James, great being here, thanks for having us.
I want to get into a handful of things with you when it comes to Assumption Schools
as we're gearing up for a new school season and everything, and want to remind everybody
there's still plenty of time to enroll in schools.
Into the school.
Absolutely James, the first day of school begins for seniors August 25th, 3K through 11th
August 27th, it's amazing all the summer flies by James.
It really does, yeah.
It's here and gone.
Yeah, we were talking about being the last games for the Raptors this week and that
just snuck up on me, I didn't even see that coming, let alone the school year starting
at everything.
The older you get, the faster things roll, that really does, yeah.
With that being said, the person, as you mentioned James, plenty of time to enroll, plenty
of room in our schools, Carrie Menel is the person to talk to, Carrie's our enrollment
director.
She's a wonderful person, she loved to hear from you.
Her direct line is 715-422-09-01, give Carrie a call if you're interested in being part
of our school system, and with that being said, we have actually four facilities, James,
we have our St. Lawrence Early Child Care Center, it's located right across the street
from St. Lawrence Church.
Our Lady Queen of Heaven School, that houses our pre-K through Sanquet, Shelley Brouley
is our principal, St. Vincent de Paul School, grades three and five, Beth Cune is our principal,
and then we have, when people think of assumption, they obviously think of the high school and
middle school, the classic building, our middle school, six through eight, and in our high
school, 9 through 12, Amber France is our principal, and check us out, you probably love
to see what we have to offer at our schools, and once again, give Carrie a call if you're
if you're deciding what school you want to go to, never too late.
Yeah, I know for me, and I've mentioned on the air many times, and I'm a Lincoln grad
myself, my brother had the ability to go to Lincoln for about a year, and then wrapped
up his rights of his high school career and add assumption, and when we would compare
notes or any of these things, one of the things that really stood out for him was going to
a school where he felt like, and this is nothing gets any of the schools in our area, any
of the schools in the world, it's just something that assumption seems to really, really be
able to do, and making every student feel in like an individual, and like they're heard,
and it really stood out to Nick about that, Nick's incredibly smart, maybe the smartest
one of the family.
For him, that added attention really helped him a lot, in ways that he didn't even realize.
I know that there's so many other positives to enrolling into assumption, and there is
still time, as Matt said, so keep that in mind, everybody, with your little ones.
We, another thing, oh, I'm sorry, Jeff, no, I mean, that's a really great point that
you mentioned, Jay, and my role and director of advancement, so we are a private institution
and it is my job to support financially our organization, and we do that through donations,
and alumni, I also work with the alumni, and it's amazing, in my year and a half year at
assumption, just the spirit of cooperation, if you graduate from there, you're a part of it
in your entire life, and a lot of our support comes from our alumni, people that have gone,
they're just like your brother, so it really is very touching to see that support urine and
you're out. Yeah, Nick, one of the things that he'll do with me is asking me updates on how the
teams are doing, or something like that, if he's not able to do it himself, otherwise, he's
listening to our radio stations, and listening to the games and stuff, and he's still, he's an
Oscar now, but he's still locked in, and might as well be in rapids, because he's still locked
into the teams, and what's going on over there, and you mentioned fundraisers, ways of schools
making money, and certainly for assumption, one of them is the sports, and we've got fall
sports right around the corner. I know that one of our favorite things around here, and one of my
signs of the school you're really getting going, and we're getting closer to the holiday season,
is the cranberry classic, it's one of my favorite events that you guys do over there. Of course,
we can't get talking about this and not talk football, though, football, I mean, that's a big one,
especially for assumption this year, it's the last year for a real tradition over there,
well, something they've done for a long time over there. It is, you know, it's the start of fall,
coming soon, you see the kids practice, the football team on the field, that's located by as far
as hospital, but James, the football is in great hands with coach Jeff Sullivan, and his assistant
coach, Andrew Swindorski, and this is our last year of going, what we call 11 aside,
football, there are 18 kids on this team, think about it, these kids will be playing on both sides
of the ball, and that is really something, and it gets to a point where there's just not as many
students playing football, probably for a lot of reasons, there's a number of kids we have,
there's concern about concussions and all that. That's a reason. So, next year, we are going to what
we call eight aside, and over excited about that, that'll help us that we won't have to have as
many kids on the field, but it's, we're still going to plow ahead, we are part of the Merrill Wood
Conference, and our games are played at the Southwood County Stadium, that beautiful field actually,
that's where Lincoln is, our games are on Friday evenings, primarily, and my advice for the
listening audience, if you are a fan of college football, and are somewhat a little disillusion
of what's going on with that sport, with the players getting paid, you have to transfer portal,
you already know who's on your team for the badgers, who's on that team anymore, so come on out,
and watch football in the true spirit of its form, and watch these kids compete their hearts off,
and I think you will like that. There's nothing like high school athletics, there's none like
high school football in particular, and we've been covering this a lot, this topic on playmakers,
a lot, Michael Comer, our sports director around here is really on this topic, and of course,
working with Randy closely, we've got an end, we know a guy, you know, so we've been able to talk
about this a lot, and the change from 11 to 8 is a significant one, I think it's important to note,
not only for assumption, but just for our local schools and our athletic programs.
Everything you mentioned is part of this, Matt, certainly we also, you know, keep in mind that while
shifting to a new league, you're going to have some of your traditional games, your rivalry games,
it may not be played anymore, so all the more reason to attend these games, where it might be the
last time you see these two schools facing each other and stuff, this year more than ever supporting
these kids, and not only a Windsor losses, that's all secondary, it's supporting these kids,
getting to see your alumni out there and playing these games and stuff, and be sure to support them
next year when they go to 8-man football, and continue that same momentum. Keep in mind as well,
while we like to talk football around here and everything, we are not fools, we cannot, of course,
not mention other sports with assumption, because they just rank up and you see them in state rankings
all the time for different sports. One of my favorite sports is cross country, I like track and field,
I'm a big fan of all that stuff. You got cross country for boys and girls coming up, that's another
one to mention. That is such a great program, and our coaches are Jim and his wife Nicole Dolan,
who are great runners themselves, Jim. Very passionate, this year is a little bit different with
the cross country team in that, we have always competed in the division five this year, the WIA
has bumped us up to division two, but I think our kids are still up to the challenge, our boys
team is getting better as I'm speaking to you, and our girls team is always right up there
in top of the state, and we're excited this year, and that we're hosting the division two
sectionals for cross country, for boys and girls at the Tri-City Golf Course on October 23rd,
so again, we are very solid with that sport, and you know, Jim and Nicole just have done a
wonderful job. Really speaks highly of the area too, the hosting event like that, that's a really
great opportunity for assumption, especially just going into division two, getting to do some
like that, that's really cool. We work really closely also with our friend Phil Hartley,
shout out to Phil in the gang of course, and I know one of the things I've been talking with him
off air about is I'd like to talk more tennis set, Phil, I love tennis, I like being able to talk
it and everything, and here we got a connection, we got an actual tennis coach, we could be talking
with all the time, so we're going to talk more tennis this year with Phil and put him to work a
little bit more, I'm not sure he's looking forward to that, but I know he's looking forward to
the tennis season, we're just talking about it this week. He is, Phil has a beautiful spirit
in soul, and he's just, I went to one of the matches last year, and he's really involved with the
kids, just a great mentor and role model, we're blessed to have Phil, his passion, and commitment,
and we never have an issue of having not having enough kids because he makes it fun. Yeah,
he's a smart and supportive coach, he's really helps these kids get better at the game while
also supporting them and everything, and while he's never coached me, I've worked with Phil on
stage as an actor, and that's the kind of actor he is, so it makes sense in his coach like that,
that makes perfect sense, and the tennis seasons right around the corner, I know, I've excited
Phil and a lot of our kids are for that, and volleyball, another big one that we wanted to make
sure to wrap up talking sports about, because volleyball's huge over there I know, they got a great
coach. Volleyball is, we have our coach Sean Hughes-Ack, who's in his second year as our volleyball
coach, and slowly but surely he's rebuilding that program, and again the main thing with our sports,
such as what we're just talking about James, is having the numbers, and our coaches provide that
positive experience, and when you have that, that's what we want, to really have these kids experience,
all the great things of sports that you and I have talked about for so much, and these coaches do
that, and Sean is doing a great job with those girls. Two of the, we've seen the numbers,
the more and more people are going to women's sports and watching them from high school to professional,
and one of the most high-scrolling sports among all that is volleyball, and so I can see a lot more
kids coming out for it in the next couple of years and everything, and that sport getting more and
more popular. I don't know, I think that'd be pretty cool. I know my mom's real excited about that,
she's a big volleyball fan. One of the things we wanted to make sure to note was the new playground
over there, really excited for the kids about this. I can only look at it from afar, I'm too big
for it, but I am really excited for the kids over there, the Lady Queen of Heaven New playground.
Yeah, that's our Lady Queen of Heaven school, again our principal is Shelley Burley, and if you look
at all our elementary schools in our area, James, there are new playgrounds going up. Yeah,
the thing that distinguishes our playground is that it's coming from a donor, someone who loves
assumption, loves kids, and it makes it even more special. That's really cool. Because one person
making this possible, so we're in the process of completing it, they're working on it right now.
To me, in my humble opinion, I think it's wonderful, the one the best of all the schools, and we have
our dedication, not only to our families that go to Shelley school, but for the public,
on Monday, August 25th at 5 p.m. So come on out, Father Barry is going to do the blessing,
we'll have some ice cream, and again, not only it's going to be great for our school,
but for our parish families, and for that community, our own our Lady Queen of Heaven,
and we're really excited about this. When past it, like a week or so ago, and it looks great,
and I'm very excited for the kids, and I appreciate noting the other playgrounds being built
around here. It's been wonderful. It's so cool to see for these kids. As a side note too,
they got such cooler stuff than they did when we were kids, man. It's almost all right,
it's some of the stuff that they got. James, I remember the swing,
monkey bars, and the sea saw. That's it. That's what we got. That's pretty cool.
It's a kid-magged, it's really bizarre. It's awesome. As we're wrapping up here, Matt,
we wanted to put a focus a little bit on the music gallery that is coming up over there.
You're going to be doing a sister act, perfect fit, perfect show to do, and a great director for it.
Ryan really knows this stuff. Ryan is really good at what he does. Ryan is,
knows you very well. If I could elaborate a little bit, James, this event takes place.
It's called the musical gala feature in sister act. Ryan, he's dead,
is our director. Very passionate. He works in our youth ministry at the high school. He was a
teacher at St. Vincent Benari's moving into this role, and it's a significant fundraiser for us.
It's taken the place of our auction, even though we'll still have some auction elements part of this
event. It's our way of getting the students involved into a significant fundraiser, and these
proceeds from this event goes towards what we call our funding need, which supports various
facility improvements at the schools that I just mentioned earlier. It's great. I know that
either in September or October, Ryan will be with you to speak more about it.
Yeah, it's going to be a great conversation, and it's going to be a great show.
This is another thing, the assumption does very well. Their theater program, their musical program
that they have over there, and the classes that they do, are really good people over there.
We haven't done this a musical since 2019. Wow. Do you believe that?
This takes, I think we have the kids. I know we have the kids that are committed.
Passionate. Oh, yeah. Ryan's the right guy for it.
It's going to be a really fun show. We'll talk more about it as we get closer to November. Of course,
Ryan joins us. Maybe we get some of the kids on this. Also, just as a side note, keep in mind,
it's a dinner show. We'll take place on Thursday at this run. So that's kind of cool. Dinner at
a show. People love that. They love that. That's going to be a lot of fun. We'll talk more about
that as we get closer to it. And want to encourage you to go to the assumption website for more
information. Follow them on social medias. Another great way to keep up the day and all the things they
are doing. Matt, cannot tell you how much we love talking with you and appreciate the time.
James, thanks for having me and have a great weekend. You too. You too, man.
And thank you, everybody, for joining us for another edition of Rapids Report.
