Local Teenagers doing us proud
by Sally Dusting-Laird
In an amazing co-incidence four former students of Upper Ferntree Gully Primary School are all college captains at Knox secondary schools.
Their close friendship and common belief in community led to organising "Battle of the Bands" recently at St Joseph's college in Ferntree Gully to raise money for Beyond Blue, to raise awareness of anxiety and depression-related disorders.
The event brought together students from seven schools across Knox with a first prize purse of $600 going to first place and $400 to the runner up.
The schools involved were St Joseph's College, Mater Christi College, Wantirna College,
Boronia Heights College, Scoresby Secondary College, The Knox School and Fairhills High School.
Celebrated in State Parliament as "extremely well organised", the student-coordinated event "demonstrated the positive activities of teenagers throughout the Knox municipality". 
One of the organisers Cain Hill, 17, has lived in Upper Ferntree Gully all his life, graduating from the primary school in 2003 and selected as one of the college captains at St Joseph's College in Ferntree Gully.
"I was so excited to be chosen as College Captain," Cain said.
"I told my friends from primary school and was surprised to find out that three of them were also selected as College Captains at their schools; Jessica Hardy (The Knox School), Jessica Callanan (Fairhills Secondary School) and Craig Bridle (Wantirna College).
"All of us in the one year level, it was amazing."
Cain said they've always retained a strong friendship even through secondary school.
"By the time you get to Year six at Upper Gully, it's hard not to be friends," he admitted.
"I think it's fair to say that Upper Gully Primary School helped us become good people and certainly the kind of people who could be voted leaders.
"At our graduation we could only guess what was in store for us, we couldn't have guessed that by 2009 we'd all be College Captains."
Cain said Battle of the Bands was a lot of hard work being a student initiative especially with the stress of VCE to deal with.
But after four months of numerous phone calls and emails they involved seven schools and seven bands, they were ready to perform on Friday 28 August 2009.
"It's essential to realize, this is a student initiative," he said. "This idea started with four students determined to do something with a brilliant opportunity.
"We planned this and people believed in us."
"After that it snowballed into such a great project, and has connected seven schools across Knox!"
One of Cain's fondest memories of primary school was "colouring outside the lines" and maybe that's the secret to his success.
