A young, local dynamo is behind the new TEDx Salinas.

Michelle Nicole Serna’s bio presents her as a “19-year old speaker, activist and non-apologist.” The Salinas native is not afraid to delve into complexity in search of clarity.

She grew up an only child in the country, with animals, including horses, as friends. She dreamed of being a rodeo queen, so when she was 14 she competed for Miss California High School Rodeo Queen. She wanted to represent the sport and practice leadership, but found herself succumbing to an inordinate amount of focus on makeup, hair, body and clothing.

“It was a harsh year,” she says. At the competition, one woman complimented her before saying, “You’re pretty, but not queen pretty.”

She went on to win Miss Congeniality and Miss Personality. But she wasn’t done with the subject of society’s expectations of girls’ and women’s bodies. At 17 she spoke about the subject at a TEDx event in San Francisco.

“It changed my life, my career, and threw me into a wonderful situation,” Serna says. One such situation she’s organized is the first-ever TEDx in her hometown of Salinas. And she’s stocked it full with inspirational speakers, entrepreneurs, musicians, many of them local, assembled to confound media-saturated expectations of what Salinas is about.

Malcolm Burt is an academic studying virtual reality amusement parks. Julie Gordon White is a bestselling author. Serna chose Ahad Anwar because the 17-year-old – who Facebook messaged her, “I’m here from Pakistan, I want to share my story” – reminded her of herself two years ago.

“The millennial generation has a lot of complaints,” she says, “but we are smart, driven individuals who can change our futures.”

TEDx Salinas is 10am-7pm Saturday, Feb. 25, at Sherwood Hall’s Santa Lucia Ballroom, 940 N. Main St., Salinas. $35-$200; discounts for students. www.ted.com/tedx/events/20649