TEDx made its second appearance in Arlee on Thursday night, bringing in 12 different speakers to share information and ideas.

Anna Baldwin, a teacher at Arlee High School, started the event as a way to bring together everything kids had learned over the year in her speech class. “I wanted to give them a stage,” she said.

The event speakers were both high school students and community members. There was also a musical performance by the River City Players.

After speaking at last year’s event, Alex Alviar, a professor in the Liberal Arts department of SKC, was back to be the master of ceremonies. After participating, Alviar did a few more TEDx talks. “Every time I’d have another speaking engagement and if I was a little intimidated, I would be able to say to myself, ‘you know what, you just did a TEDx talk. You can handle this,’” he said.

During the event, six community members spoke for between 10 and 15 minutes, while the six high school students kept it shorter, at about three minutes. Topics ranged from communication to hunting and beyond.

Senior Megan Shick said she was excited before her speech, which was about communication. “I think it’s a good way to express things that I think are important,” she said, “I’m pretty excited just to hopefully open people’s minds.”

The students had been working on their speeches for about three weeks, according to Baldwin. Students brainstormed ideas, then perfected them before having a few practice runs leading up to the main event. “For a lot of the class, this is the biggest crowd they’ve spoken in front of,” Shick said.

In TEDx events, there is a limit of 100 attendees. The seats were just about full as speakers including former Lieutenant Governor Angela McLean and spectrUM founder Holly Truitt shared their knowledge and ideas.