Blue Fox Band to perform for Relay for Life fundraiser
Published 8:32 am Thursday, April 25, 2019
- Star Photo/Amber Wadovick (Left to right) Jim Bass, Tony Rominger, John Gardner and Andy Houston are some fo the band members who will be performing next Saturday. They said they used to eprform all the time in the 60's and 70's, but got back together five years ago to raise money for cancer research.
The Blue Fox Band is returning to Elizabethton next weekend, reuniting for the fight against cancer.
Jim Bass said the group has been putting on this annual fundraiser for the Relay for Life for the past five years or so.
The concert is a fund-raiser event. While attending the concert itself is free, the band said they strongly encourage donations of any kind, and a representative of the ACS will also be present at the event.
“This is our fifth annual ‘Rock Reunion,’” Bass said.
The band originally played in the ’60s and ’70s before splitting and going their own ways.
Several years ago, Bass said he met with John Gardner about possibly getting back together, but they wanted this to be different.
“I wanted to get back together for a purpose,” he said.
That purpose ended up being the American Cancer Society.
“The Big C has touched a lot of lives,” Bass said.
Tony Rominger said attempting to get the band back together, especially with two of their members living at least an hour away from Elizabethton, was a challenge.
“It was a major undertaking,” Rominger said. “It really is a great cause.”
Last year, they said they were able to raise roughly $4,200 for the Relay for Life, and their almost five-year span of doing the fundraiser has accumulated roughly $13,000 in donations.
“It seems like it gets bigger each year,” Andy Houston said.
The concert is more than a fund-raiser for the band members, however. It also represents a way of reconnecting not just with each other, but friends and former classmates.
“A lot of our classmates still come,” Bass said. “We still have that camaraderie as classmates.”
The band does not completely abandon music in between fund-raiser concerts, however. Rominger and Gardner both said they currently play professionally in some form.
The concert will take place on Saturday, May 4, at T.A. Dugger Jr. High in their auditorium, located at 305 West E St. The concert will go from 6 to 8 p.m.
Bass said the ACS will have a booth to both sell T-shirts and provide current statistics about cancer.
“People do not realize how much information they have,” Bass said. “We hope [the concert] will be a bright spot in this community.”
