Holli Rausch

Well, I’ve had three rehearsals so far this week for my Freshman Showcase. By the way, I’m directing a Freshman Showcase this year. All of the scripts were written by our new technical director, the one I’m directing is called The Great Diversion. My actors are Jamie Grimes and Molly Weeldreyer. I’m pretty excited about the way things are going. They were on the stage yesterday, and really got into it and that is good news. There’s a kiss written in the script, so we’ll probably discuss that towards the end of next week. We only have 3.5 weeks of rehearsal before we perform…so that is very scary. Especially since Molly is in two plays. She has twice the work in an insanely small amount of time. I’ve got faith in them though. Yippee.

What’s the play about? Let’s just say it involves Zombies….and brains. Don’t believe me? Well, you’ll have to come and see for yourself. Oct 11 and 12 in the Underground, time is TBA.

I’m going home this weekend for the first time since May. Don’t worry – I have seen my family since May, I have just not been home. There’s a difference. Miles and David are joining me. I’m going to see West Sioux play football, and play it well. Please don’t rain.

So the Lady T’s basketball season is officially over. What a run they had, though! They come out of regular season play in first place for the D-A-C, with a #18 rank in the nation. They got beat in conference tournament play, but still won the second-to-last bid to qualify for the national tournament in Sioux City, IA. I had made the decision that I was going to Sioux City if the girls made it. And one week later there I was in the Tyson Events Center at 8:30 AM, alongside Miles Rausch, Kendra Weisser, Jennifer Sixta, and Kim Sixta. We stayed at my parents’ house the night before so we didn’t have so far to drive in the morning. The girls won against Shawnee State and were a part of the Sweet Sixteen. What made it even better, was that Cici was there and she sat with me for the first half. She’d clap when I clapped. Sometimes when I get excited about a play, I point at the player. Cici would point when I pointed. I think the only thing she can’t do is control her bladder.

We high-tailed it back to Madison for people to get a 1/2 day of work in the afternoon and prepared to head back to my town the next night. We got there (without Kim this time) and Jen and Kendra were asleep by 7:00 PM or something crazy. Headed out the next morning to see the girls play the #4 ranked team in the nation, Tabor College from Kansas. It seemed as though every player for DSU was “on”. We really got our momentum when our 6-10 players were on the court, which is amazing. It truly shows that they’re just as important as our starters. It wore out Tabor, because we were the same team whether our starters were on the court or not, and they definately had different momentum without their starters. So we kept running hard and wearing them out and eventually won by what seems like a landslide (if you just look at the final score anyway). Turns out that the Lady T’s had two upsets for the tournament. Those girls were proving that they deserved to be there. They were in the Elite Eight.

We drove back to Madison, and returned to Hawarden five hours later. We played Phase 10 with my parents and slept in a couple hours on Saturday. My parents came to watch that game with us. We weren’t the same team that afternoon. We were a little sloppy and just not ready for a team like Hastings from Nebraska. The momentum just wasn’t in our favor (neither were the referees). But they had a great season and played hard. And can hold their head up high as a team that was Elite. (I hate the term Elite Eight…I like Ecstatic Eight better.)

Angie Gottsleben sinks three’s with a horrible shot technique, but no one can criticize if she’s making them! Sara Nelson (my old RA) had a great game against Tabor and earned the honor of being named a Champion of Character. Laura Tewes is a quiet player, but excellent nonetheless. I was very impressed. My mom said Laura was her favorite player. Kendra said she could see Laura being named to the All-Tournament team. Jen and Kendra’s roommates Jill Hansen, Jessica VanLoy, and Stephanie Kaup were all great and made some excellent plays. I was especially excited for Steph because she didn’t get much playing time during the season, but proved she deserved to have gotten more when she was on the court at nationals.

I am at KJAM now and am a little irritated. The guy who was going to do it this morning called me last night at 9:00 to ask if I could work for him. Jim had told me that he might call….but I thought the DJ would have at least given me 12 hours notice. Anyway, I didn’t get much sleep and my voice hurts. So I’m not talking on-air much. Jim Hockett told me that he has turned in his resignation at KJAM. I’m very sad, because he’s great in a lot of ways. He even made sure I didn’t have to work this week so that I could go to the national tournament! I suppose it will make it easier to tell the station I won’t be returning after this semester if I decide I do not want to stay. Oh well, people need to move on I guess, so why can’t Jim? *sigh*

Spring break is over.