Air Force jazz band performing Saturday

The USAF Jazz Band features Vocalist Sergeant Krista Joyce

McCOOK, Nebraska -- This Saturday, the McCook Daily Gazette will sponsor the U.S. Air Force Heartland of America Band, The Noteables jazz ensemble concert at 7 p.m. in Norris Park at the bandshell.

This concert is free and open to the public; no advanced tickets are required. The McCook City Auditorium has been reserved if the weather becomes uncooperative.

The 90-minute concert will feature a 13-piece jazz ensemble. One of the featured vocalists will be Technical Sgt. Krista Joyce.

Joyce joined the Heartland of America Band in June 2005. Sgt. Joyce entered the Air Force in 1996 and began her career with the Band of the Air Force Reserve at Robins AFB, Georgia.

While there, she performed with High Flight, the Jazz Ensemble and the Concert Band.

In May 2002, she transferred to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Band stationed at Sembach Air Base, Germany, where she performed with The Ambassadors Jazz Ensemble, the jazz combo and The Barnstormers folk and bluegrass ensemble.

Originally from Harleton, Texas, Sergeant Joyce studied Music Education at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas and then transferred to Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas where she earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree.

The concert is being sponsored by McCook Daily Gazette as part of the year-long celebration of the Gazette's 100th anniversary. The Gazette was founded by Harry Strunk in 1911 as the weekly newspaper "The Red Willow County Gazette."

Then newspaper evolved into a semi-weekly and tri-weekly publication before becoming a daily in 1924.