CHS team wins international debate title

Students competed against teams from Vietnam and Japan online.

Representing their school and country on the world stage, the Cedartown High School international debate team can call themselves world champions.

The three-person team of senior Nellie Abdul-Rahman, and juniors Seth Wright and Ava Reaves participated in the Seventh Annual Parliamentary Debate World Congress Online Conference and Competition the week of Feb. 7, making it to the finals and going on to defeat Shibuya School from Tokyo to win the title.

Cedartown has taken part in the PDWC each of the last seven years, with this year marking the furthest the United States had ever gone in the competition, which included 11 total debate teams from around the world.

“I’m extremely proud of my team,” said Cedartown coach Jennifer Cupp, who is an English and literature teacher at CHS. “Our semifinals and finals were held at 3 a.m. local time, and we all woke up around 2 a.m. in order to be alert and awake enough to execute our debates on time. They overcame a rigorous schedule and still maintained their regular classes and activities. My kids aren’t just world champions, they’re superheroes!”

Traditionally held in Saitama, Japan, the PDWC has been held via Zoom online the last three years due to the covid pandemic. Cupp said the trip is a highlight of the year for the team as they get to interact with other students from around the world and travel to parts of Japan.

“It’s an amazing trip, and the friendships and bonds formed during that week have lasted for years. Sadly, we have only gotten a taste of that the past three years by debating and attending cultural connect events via Zoom, but it’s still been special,” Cupp said.

The schedule for the Cedartown team included attending cultural connect video

laughs and, you know, keeps talking and just kind of gives it back and it’s hilarious. And people love it,” Brown said.

“There’s no local audio content like this. And we’re not trying to change the world or reinvent the wheel. We just thought, ‘oh, this will be a lot of fun and, selfishly, it’ll just be therapeutic.”

The idea for the podcast came about when Brown and Abrams were at the Rockmart Waffle House the night of Silver Comet Fest in November.

“It’s something that was bouncing around in my head for a while and while we were hanging out I figured I would throw it out there and see what Josh thought about it and he was like, ‘let’s do it,’” Abrams said.

Brown knew that Everett had a podcast studio, but they didn’t know him that well. They approached him at a Rotary Club meeting with the idea and went from there.

“I liked the idea,” Everett said. “We did kind of throw a few ideas around for the name of it. We didn’t really want to come out and be like, we’re the Rockmart podcast. But it was really the only thing that stuck.”

All three have had different journeys to get to Rockmart. Everett has lived in Rockmart all of his life while Abrams moved to the city in 2019. Brown’s grandfather was from Rockmart and his dad grew up there before relocating to Rome.

When Brown moved back to the area for a job last year he found a home in Rockmart.

The show comes out on a weekly basis with episodes available on Spotify or Apple podcasts and at therockmartpodcast.podbean.com.