Fayette County Alum Wins College Debate’s Top Honor

March 30, 2007 

Dallas, TX: Fayette County High School alum Kevin Rabinowitz won the top Collegiate Debate Team Honor this past weekend. The Rex Copeland Memorial Award is presented every year at the National Collegiate Debate Championship to the college debate team ranked “Number One” overall.  The National Debate Tournament’s Board of Trustees say, “This award is for the few who achieve one of the highest honors in the debate community, so that they too will be well remembered."

This is the first time a Fayette County student has ever won the Copeland Award.  During the 2006-2007 school year, Kevin and his partner [Brent Culpepper from Warner Robins, GA] won the Georgia State, California State Fullerton, and the Dartmouth Round Robin tournaments.  They finished second at Kentucky, Wake Forest and the Kentucky Round Robin. They also were semifinalists at Northwestern.  During the year, Kevin and Brent debated 114 rounds, winning 96 of them (that’s an .842 winning percentage!).  They only lost six preliminary rounds all year.  They have certainly worked hard to become the number one debate team in the nation!  They enter this weekend’s National Championship as favorites to win it all!

Kevin Rabinowitz debated for Fayette County from 1999-2003.  During his tenure he qualified for the Tournament of Champions [highest High School honor] three times his Senior year!  He qualified for the All State Championships twice. Kevin was also a part of the 2003 State Runner Up team at FCHS.  He attends the University of Georgia where he is in his Senior year majoring in Risk Management and Insurance.  

We wish the University of Georgia luck this weekend and Kevin and Brent try to bring home the National Debate Championship!

Rabinowitz clears at the NDT as top seed

April 2, 2007

Dallas, TX: The weekend didn’t end as exciting as it started for the University of Georgia’s Kevin Rabinowitz and Brent Culpepper.  They started out on Thursday winning the Copeland award.  The debates started Friday and lasted until Monday.  They began the tournament winning their first 12 ballots against the University of Texas (Austin), University of Texas-Dallas, Dartmouth College, and Wake Forest. Their fifth round gave them their first speed bump against CEDA Nationals Runner Up Dartmouth College. They lost on a 2-1 decision.  Kevin and Brent would finish by sweeping the final 9 ballots against Berkeley, Idaho State University and Whitman College. Double Octofinals were posted and UGA had a bye- which means they were in the top four going into the elimination rounds.  Records were posted late Sunday night and it was released that Kevin and Brent were the number 1 seed.  At the awards ceremony, Brent Culpepper was announced as 8^th best speaker and Kevin Rabinowitz was 9^th Best Speaker. Kevin and Brent went on to lose on a 3-2 decision in Octofinals against Harvard University. Congratulations Brent and Kevin on truly a phenomenal year!