A 24-year tradition at Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park is set to return this spring after a two-year absence, organizers said.

The historic park will host Pops in the Park on Saturday, May 24, though the traditional Independence Day Pops concert will remain in Chattanooga’s Coolidge Park as it has since 2001, said Patty Currey, marketing and communications manager for the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera.

Currey said the symphony would like to see Pops in the Park become an annual Memorial Day event at the battlefield.

“We are very excited about coming back to the park and doing a Memorial Day concert,” she said. “It’s something that we would love to do on an annual basis. North Georgia is very important to us.”

For 24 years, Chattanooga Symphony & Opera held its Independence Day celebration at the foot of the park’s Wilder Tower.

The symphony, facing a lack of sponsors, opted in 2001 to move the mid-summer event to Chattanooga, Currey said.

Mike Fuller, chief executive officer of Independent Living Aids, said he spearheaded the charge to restore the annual event to North Georgia.

”My family was disappointed when they took it away from the park,” he said. “I even remember the tree where I sat with my family and we had picnics with my kids when they were young. This was a great event to go to the park and be with your family and hear the music and see the fireworks.

“We told the people at the symphony about it,” Fuller said. “They said ‘Well, to bring it back to Georgia it would require several sponsors’ and we said ‘We’ll be the major sponsor.’”

Fuller said that although details are still being hammered out, other sponsors who have signed on to support the concert include Northwest Georgia Bank, Ringgold Telephone Co., Blood Assurance, and Hutcheson Medical Center. Friends of the Park and the Catoosa County Chamber of Commerce have also pledged their support, he said.

“We got everybody together and got the commitments to take care of the whole thing,” he said. “We’re bringing it back to the park.”

Fuller said U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., and U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., have also been invited to attend.

“It’s a patriotic holiday,” he said. “I think it will pull people together and be a great event.”

Currey noted that the event will coincide with Ringgold’s 1890s Days, the 50th anniversary of Hutcheson Medical Center and Catoosa County’s 150th anniversary.

“There’s a lot of things to celebrate in North Georgia,” she said.

Park Superintendent Pat Reed said the event was first staged at the park in 1976 as part of the nation’s bicentennial. The Pops concert went over so well, it became a tradition that park officials estimate attracted an average of about 10,000 people.

“We think Memorial Day is probably a more appropriate holiday for a national military park anyway, to honor veterans,” Reed said. “We’d like to see it themed more around honoring veterans from all wars than necessarily a Pops concert. That would take in a lot — everything from Civil War music right up through the World Wars. There’s a lot of good music associated.

“Particularly, at this time, with things that are going on in the world, it would be very appropriate to honor our veterans,” he said. “I think a concert could be developed around that theme. That would be our preference.