The best piece of advice Canberra youth worker Luke Ferguson ever received came from INXS keyboardist Andrew Farriss.
"If it ever stops being fun, give it up," Mr Farriss told him at the group's last Australian show at Canberra Theatre.
"And I remember thinking, well this is going to be fun forever ... making music is going to be fun forever," Mr Ferguson said, recalling that night when his band The Hammonds opened for the Australian music legends.
It never did stop being fun, but it did take on a new form.
Mr Ferguson spoke over the phone from a tiny music studio at the Woden School, a high school for kids with a disability, where five years ago he launched a music program to give the students a chance to express themselves.
He's nominated for an ACT Local Hero award, part of the 2022 ACT Australian of the Year awards to be announced on Friday.
"But these kids are my local heroes", Mr Ferguson said.
"I'm sitting here in the studio now, I'm surrounded by posters of students ... I'm looking at these kind ... smiling faces, and it's, yeah, these kids really are pretty awesome."
The posters are part of Party Down Productions, the student-led initiative at the school which hosts weekly discos, performs and makes music.
The discos, hosted during Thursday lunchtimes, are so popular that not one has been missed over the five-year period, moving to an online format throughout Canberra's lockdown.
"They get to design posters, we do a poster run around the school, they get to program the set list, and they get to help set up the PA, and if they want to sing karaoke, they can sing karaoke," Mr Ferguson said.
"And that's how it started out, and it's just snowballed, it's gone absolutely. bananas."
In 2018, the students and Mr Ferguson co-wrote and produced the music video Labels Don't Define Us.
The song went viral and was shared by the United Nations on their Social Development Network website.
"I love the fact that we're changing people's perceptions of what these students are capable of, we're removing stigma surrounding students with a disability ... we're improving their self-esteem."
"These kids, they're changing people's perceptions globally, it's not just locally and it's not nationally."
Mr Ferguson is one of four Canberrans nominated for an ACT Local Hero award.
Kate Crowhurst, a financial literacy educator, Kelli-Ann Jackson, who leads an adventure program for women in the ACT, and Robert Regent who advocates for people with a disability through his passion for sport, are all up for the award.
The nominees are among 129 people being recognised across all states and territories as part of the program, with Canberrans also nominated across the categories of ACT Australian of the Year, ACT Young Australian of the Year and ACT Senior Australian of the Year.
The ACT award recipients will be announced on Friday at the National Gallery, and will then join the other state and territory recipients as national finalists for the national awards announcement on January 25, 2022.
