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Music star Rodney Atkins to headline military concert

Country singer Rodney Atkins will headline a “Hometown Heroes” concert Sept. 15 at the Fraze for Wright-Patterson personnel, organizers announced Friday.

Up to 4,000 tickets will be given to personnel and their families to the private concert, organizers said.

“We feel like this is our hometown,” Col. Bradley W. McDonald, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, said at a press conference at the Fraze on Friday. “We live in these communities. We work in the community. We’re raising families in the community.”

The Dayton Region Military Collaborative — a mix of government, university and private sector organizations — sponsored the concert, officials said.

Hometown Heroes has donated more than 25,000 tickets since 2012 to airmen and their families at events like the NCAA First Four basketball tournament, Dayton Dragons games, and to the Dayton Art Institute, Schuster Center and Victoria Theatre, said Jeff Hoagland, Dayton Development Coalition president and CEO.

“To us, it’s a thank you for a lot of these people working here,” he said. “Some are deployed quite often and the families are left here without their loved one, so going to the Dragons’ game and getting a tour of the facility, it’s just something a little bit special.”

“You’ve heard this before, but here’s why Wright-Patterson matters so much to us,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Dan Foley, noting it as the largest single site employer in Ohio with a $4 billion regional economic impact.

Once the concert tickets are received, the 88th Air Base Wing public affairs office will distribute them through a formal process, base spokeswoman Marie Vanover said Friday. Further details will be released later.

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