Moorhead Public Schools

The Moorhead High School Spud Speech Team earned one individual national championship and two other top-four finishes at the 2025 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa. In total, eight Spuds reached at least the quarterfinals in their disciplines at the six-day event.
Senior Allie Skauge’s dream of making the final round stage became reality this week, but not before a surreal event delayed her performance. As the last speaker in Thursday’s final round of Humor, Skauge’s code and title were announced while an attendee took the stage, causing confusion and, eventually, a full building evacuation.
The remaining final rounds were suspended and moved to Friday. In a statement posted to Moorhead’s social media pages, the team announced that Skauge would perform to “honor the journey that brought her here.” They added, “We believe humor heals, and we could all use a bit of that right now.”
What followed was, perhaps, just as surreal.
The modified schedule gave Skauge her own time slot, just moments before the start of the awards ceremony. As an added dose of serendipity, the final speaker of the preceding event, Original Oratory, happened to be her teammate, Sam Schaefer. For about thirty minutes Friday evening, the stage belonged to Spud Speech.
Although there were no judges present and final round ranks would not count, Skauge reentered the stage to a rousing standing ovation, then delivered a performance for the ages, her interpretation of the 2019 film “Brittany Runs a Marathon.”
She walked into that final round in first place; she walked out a national champion.
Senior Sam Schaefer closed out his speech career with a third place finish in Oratory; junior Jack Simon advanced to finals in Informative and finished in fourth place. Simon also earned an auto-qualifier spot to the 2026 NSDA National Tournament.
Senior Ashlyn Kanuch capped an impressive career with a 10th place finish in Humor; seniors Eleanor Culloton (Inform), Evan Froslie (Humor), and Tim Gabbard (POI), and junior Sami Jama (POI) all reached quarterfinals. Culloton also became just the eighth Spud to finish in the top 30 three times in a career.
Spuds reaching Octofinals include seniors Elise Halvorson (Oratory), Menkayla Kruah (Drama), Ella Larson (USX), and Sam Rein-Strutz (USX); junior Davie Judd (POI); and sophomores Miriam Culloton & Rachel Leiseth (Duo), and Elodia Eidsmoe (Inform).
Nationals by the numbers:
26 – The number of NSDA national finalists in team history, including 13 in the last four years.
7 – The Spuds have had at least one entry reach finals in seven of the last eight national tournaments. At least one speaker has advanced to semifinals or better in each of the last 15 and in 20 of the past 22 National Tournaments.
124 – The number of Spuds to reach elimination rounds in main speech and debate events since 2011. Moorhead has advanced at least four speakers to out-rounds in each of the last 15 National Tournaments and at least six have reached out-rounds in each of the last 10 National Tournaments.
3 – Moorhead has advanced at least three entries to semifinals or finals in nine of the last ten tournaments.
16 – The number of Spuds to reach elimination rounds three times at Nationals. Seniors Eleanor Culloton, Ashlyn Kanuch, and Sam Schaefer join Karena Christenson, Greta Homuth, Olivia Dahlberg, CeCe Bedore, Jack Nichol, Jessica Anderson, Ariana Grollman, Nina Grollman, Maret Holm, Carl Hulden, Anna Larson, Izzy Larson, and Andrea Lichtsinn on this list.