By GWEN ALBERSManaging Editor

Fourteen-time Grammy Award winning country music and bluegrass star Ricky Skaggs at 7 p.m. Friday,  Aug. 7, will perform a free concert at Boundary County Fairgrounds.

Mountain Springs Church, a non-denominational church that purchased Wellspring Community Church earlier this year, will host the performance.

“We just want to do something to love on this community,” said Jeff Herr, who serves on the church’s pastoral team. “The people have been so supportive.”

The church will pay for Skaggs and his band, Kentucky Thunder, to come to Bonners Ferry. The church also will bring in a professional stage, and sound and lighting systems for the concert on the soccer field, Herr said.

Concert-goers will need to bring chairs.

Mountain Springs Church has a connection with Skaggs through it lead pastor, Garrett Graupner. Graupner’s friend and boss Mike Macintosh with Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego, Calf. Horizon Christian Fellowship began in 1974 as a home Bible study of 12 people. MacIntosh led the group, which now has more than 100 churches and para-church organizations.

MacIntoch traveled to Serbia with Skaggs during the war.

“Between the two of them, they set me up,” Graupner said. “Ricky has a love for God and a heart for small-town America.”

Known affectionately as bluegrass music’s official ambassador, Skaggs won eight consecutive Grammy awards. Among his 13 No. 1 hits were “Don't Cheat in Our Hometown” and “Country Boy.”

Born July 18, 1954 in Cordell, Ky., Skaggs was an accomplished singer and mandolin player in his teens.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Skaggs turned his attention to country music. With the release of “Waitin' for the Sun to Shine” in 1981, Skaggs reached the top of the country charts and remained there throughout most of the 1980s.

He as Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year in 1985.

Beyond his award-winning recordings, Skaggs continues to lead the charge in bringing renewed vitality to country music's most down-to-earth art form. From a string of high-profile tour dates with the Dixie Chicks in 2000, to his position as host of the unprecedented All Star Bluegrass Celebration, which aired nationwide on PBS in 2002.