Blake Shelton's Friends & Heroes Tour returns to the Ford Center this Friday night (September 10th, 2021), and one Evansville man will get to sit front and center to enjoy the show.

Part of Blake's tour includes celebrating a local hero in each city he plays. These heroes are selected by Blake himself with assistance from representatives with the venue he'll be performing in. For the Evansville show, that would be VenuWorks, the company that manages the Ford Center.

While any number of people could have easily been selected as Evansville's local hero, VenuWorks selected a man you've likely seen countless times on TV during local newscasts over the past year and a half as the COVID pandemic made its way into the Tri-State in March 2020.

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Joe Gries is the Administrator of the Vanderburgh County Health Department, and on top of his regular duties, has been the one coordinating the Department's response to the pandemic, meaning he's been the one making sure our local hospitals and clinics have the supplies they need for testing and administering vaccinations to letting the public know where those testing and vaccination sites are. I imagine Joe has put in an insane amount of work hours over the past 18 months all to ensure residents in and around Vanderburgh County have access to what they need in order to be as prepared as possible should COVID cross their path.

According to a press release from VenuWorks, Joe will receive a "prize pack" from Shelton in addition to the front row seats for Friday night's show. However, the release does not specify exactly what those additional gifts are.

On behalf of all of us here at WKDQ, we'd like to congratulate Joe on this well-deserved recognition and offer our sincere thanks for the work he's put it during the course of the pandemic.

Tickets for Friday night's show are still available at the Ford Center box office as well as Ticketmaster.com for as low as $26.00.

Keep listening all this week to The Q Crew Morning Show with myself and Leslie for your chance to win a pair of tickets to the show by playing "You Name the Dog."

[Source: VenuWorks Press Release]

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