BRADENTON, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The United States Air Force Band of the West is traveling to Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The band is performing five times in western Florida between Jan. 11 and Jan. 15
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The band will perform in Tampa on Jan. 15th at the Tampa Convention Center\u00a0
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Clearwater native Ross Hussong is proud to continue his music career as a member of the Air Force\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
They performed in Bradenton on Wednesday night and are performing in Tampa Thursday night.<\/p>\n
The band is made up of talented service members, including Clearwater native Ross Hussong, who has been serving in the Air Force for more than three years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His love for music, and specifically drums, began not only at a young age, but from a popular franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a huge Star Wars nerd,\u201d he said. \u201cI had lightsabers, and I started drumming with toy lightsabers to the Imperial March, and my parents got so annoyed with it, they were just like, we got to get him some actual drumsticks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Studying music in high school and through college, Hussong said he didn\u2019t know that playing in a band for the Air Force could be an option.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the opportunity arose, he didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo do something like this is already so rare, but to be able to do it and wear the uniform, it\u2019s really a distinct honor that I never thought I would have,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commander and Conductor David Regner said this tour takes on extra significance as it\u2019s to celebrate America\u2019s 250th birthday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thursday night\u2019s performance will be the fifth Florida performance in five days.<\/p>\n
David said they\u2019re looking forward to connecting with all who come.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are over 200 different career fields and jobs that someone can do in the Air Force,\u201d he said. \u201cSurely if we can do what we love as musicians and still serve our country, for anyone who also feels that they need to serve, there\u2019s certainly a place for them in the Air Force.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The band will perform at the Tampa Convention Center on Thursday night at 9:15 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRADENTON, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The United States Air Force Band of the West is traveling to Tampa.\u00a0 What You Need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1011,59903,28,7088,4628,115,135,137,136,835],"class_list":["post-119257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-military","tag-florida","tag-manatee-county","tag-matt-lackritz","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}