PHS Speech Team Competes for National Spotlight

Start by preheating the oven to absolute control. Mix a gallon of media suppression with a dose of military force. Gently fold in just enough propaganda until the truth is completely dissolved, then sift out any dissenting opinions. Finally, let it slowly roast under the watchful eye of state surveillance until it’s impossible to overturn.

For those looking to whip up a batch of authoritarian rule, Peninsula High School senior speechwriter Alex Sprague has just the recipe.

Her chilling, yet satirical take on forming a dictatorship, cleverly disguised as an infomercial, has earned Sprague a spot in the Informative Speaking event at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, June 15-20. There she’ll compete against some of the best high school speakers in the country.

“I just wanted to do something really original,” Sprague said of her 10-minute speech that turns tyranny into a tantalizing performance. “I went through so many ideas before I landed on the concept of a recipe book for starting a dictatorship (with PHS speech and debate coach Maddie Lancaster). It’s fun, but it’s a little unsettling when you realize how realistic it is.”

“One of the most important parts of speech and debate is finding a topic you’re passionate about, and Alex found hers,” said Lancaster, a history teacher at Peninsula. “She put a lot of effort into refining her presentation and the result is an engaging, well-researched, and unique speech.”

Peninsula High School’s Speech and Debate team is making its first return to the national stage since 2017. Sprague, the team’s captain, will head to Iowa immediately after getting her diploma at Peninsula’s graduation ceremony June 14. She’ll be joined at the tournament by her junior teammates, Alyssa Robinson and Mars Burton, as they go head-to-head with 1,500 of the nation’s sharpest young orators. Despite being a three-person squad, much smaller than their typical 12-person team this year, the three secured an impressive third-place finish at the district meet in March.

Beyond speech and debate, all three share a love for theater. Sprague and Robinson thrive on stage as performers, while Burton prefers working behind the scenes, helping bring productions to life. That theatrical experience carries over into their speech performances, shaping their ability to command an audience — whether through humor or drama — or in Sprague’s case, both.

“The idea was to take a dark topic like authoritarianism and present it with a bit of humor without undermining its seriousness,” she explained. Sprague takes on the persona of an over-the-top, unhinged infomercial host with an exaggerated sales pitch that adds comedic flair while driving home a deeper message.

As the speech unfolds, the recipe for dictatorship gradually takes a sinister turn. It starts with general advice on becoming a great leader and gradually shifts into propaganda, indoctrination, and eventually things like creating a secret police force and committing genocide. Sprague drives her message home with a chilling historical reference. “At the end, I quote Stalin: ‘One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic.’ The idea is that when tragedies become too large, people stop seeing the individuals behind the numbers.”

A self-proclaimed history nerd, Sprague’s passion fueled her desire to craft a speech that was both educational and thought-provoking while remaining competitive. “In competition, your topic needs to be neutral enough that judges don’t mark you down for disagreeing with you,” Sprague explained, adding that this speech goes over better with younger judges than older ones. “So, I aimed to say something important without directly saying it.”

While Sprague’s speech has amusing undertones, Robinson brings deliberate fun to the stage in the Humorous Interpretation event with her performance of Investigator Q. It’s a comedic whodunit about the case of the president’s murdered cat, Mr. Whiskers. Performed like a one-person show, Robinson brings to life the eccentric suspects in the case using just her voice and body language, demonstrating the skills she’s picked up in both theater and speech competitions.

“You definitely need a good sense of comedic timing,” Robinson said. “It’s not just about memorizing lines. You have to know when to let the joke sit, how to play with delivery, and how to engage the audience.”

Her performance leans into the absurd, including a scene where Investigator Q misinterprets the silent widow of Mr. Whiskers as flirting, forcing Robinson to crawl on the floor and act out the awkward exchange as a cat. Lancaster said with Robinson’s bubbly personality that this event is perfect for her.

“Once you’ve done something like that in a competition, talking to people in real life is easy,” Robinson said.

Both Sprague and Robinson agreed that Burton faces the toughest challenge of the three: speaking off the cuff in the Extemporaneous Speaking event. Here, competitors are given just 30 minutes to research and prepare a seven-minute, fact- based speech on a current event.

Despite the time crunch, Burton has a reliable routine: she starts with an attention-grabbing introduction, followed by three supporting points. “I’m expected to be just as polished as those with memorized speeches,” said Burton, who draws on historical parallels to make her arguments stronger.

At the state competition, Burton tackled topics like whether President Trump could legally secure a third term, and the merits of his “golden visa” proposal. She won’t know her Iowa topic until the time comes, though competitors can submit suggestions ahead of time.

“With today’s 24-hour news cycle, it’s easy to stay updated, but Mars’ challenge is structuring the information in a clear and persuasive way,” Lancaster said. “She’s getting better at that every day.”

As they prepare for the national stage, Sprague and her classmates hope their speeches will leave an impact beyond the competition.

“You need to weigh the impacts of what you’re talking about because, in the real world, everything has upsides and downsides,” Sprague said. “Speech and debate teaches you how to analyze those factors in a way that allows you to convince others. That’s a very useful skill.”

And while she may be presenting a recipe for dictatorship, her real goal is to give audiences something else: food for thought.