Blake Bozarth, a junior at Covenant, recently founded and is president of the Debate Society at Covenant. I thought I would share it with you avid and aspiring intellectuals who enjoy a good debate. Here is a little information about their recent successes in the tournament The Patrick Henry Communicator Classic from the Covenant website.

Two Covenant students finished in the top five overall as the newly formed Covenant College Debate Society competed in its first tournament, The Patrick Henry Communicator Classic, at Patrick Henry College on January 24, 2009.  As part of the National Forensics Association (NFA), the tournament hosted 33 students from four schools, including Covenant and North Carolina State. Covenant’s young Debate Society made an impressive showing. Zach Robbins ‘12 finished in third place overall and captured the first place speaker award. Blake Bozarth ‘10 finished in fifth place overall and earned the second place speaker award. Along with Robbins and Bozarth, four other Debate Society members competed: Hannah Vanbiber ‘11, John Rogers ‘09, Ali Morgan ‘11, and Rosemary Shelden ‘12.  Vanbiber received the thirteenth place speaker award.

“Our expectations were not very high,” said Bozarth, founder and president of the club, “not only because it was our first tournament as a Debate Society, but also due to the fact that we were going to be competing against colleges who already had a semester’s head start in debating the topic.  We were pleasantly surprised by the success we enjoyed.”

Bozarth, Robbins, and Vanbiber all qualified for the NFA Nationals, which will be held at Missouri State University on April 16-18.