Former pastor’s work will have ‘ripples’ in the community for years to come
Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church parishioners say that Fr. Ed Bradley will not only leave a legacy at the church and school but on the Henderson community as well.
Bradley, 81, died Saturday.
After having served in Owensboro in several positions the previous 20 years, Bradley came to Henderson in 1995 and immediately got to work.
Valerie Beckert, currently Holy Name School’s accountant who previously worked on capital campaigns for both the church and school, said Bradley early on listened to concerns that the school needed a pre-school and early learning center. A year after he arrived, the school had facilities dedicated to those needs, she said.
“He had a great vision and business sense to take feedback he got and act on it,” Beckert said.
Beckert said Bradley’s vision was something that set him apart. Many times, people will see something that needs to be done but say things like “they” need to get that done. Not Bradley, she said. He saw a need—or was informed of one—and he set out looking for ways to make it happen.
The many projects he was involved with were wide-ranging and will continue to have “ripples” in Henderson for years to come, Beckert said.
According to his obituary, some of those projects include a soup kitchen at Saint Stephen Cathedral, the Daniel Pitino Homeless Shelter in Owensboro, the St. Joseph Community Apartments for low-income residents in Henderson, the Fr. Bradley Shelter in Henderson, the Henderson Emergency Shelter for Women and Children, and the Women’s Addiction Recovery Manor.
Additionally, Bradley oversaw two additions to the school and a large addition to the church, where the administrative offices currently are, Beckert said.
He also helped to start an endowment fund for school, she said.
One project, the Father Bradley Shelter for Women and Children, came from a community need, said Mary Ann Thrasher, who assisted in getting the shelter at its Klutey Park Plaza location.
Thrasher knew Fr. Bradley since at least 1975, shortly after he was ordained, when Fr. E.E. Willet, Holy Name’s pastor at the time, introduced Bradley to Cecil and Mary Ann Thrasher, and their children.
When Bradley came as the pastor 20 years later, he asked Thrasher to bulk up the church’s community outreach to the poor. She said the church was able to improve that, helping three days a week with food, rent and utility payments.
One day a battered woman came to ask for help, and Thrasher knew they needed to do more. That was the impetus of the Father Bradley Shelter for Women and Children. It took some time, but they got it built, she said.
Bradley also had an effect on students at Holy Name during his tenure as church pastor. Some are now leaders in the community.
Cory Bridges, currently a commercial loan officer and vice president at Field and Main Bank, said he was a 4th grader at HNS when he became an altar server and was told by his mother, Rosemary, that “it’s best if you do the 7:30 a.m. (Mass),” Bridges said.
Because there were only about three other boys who volunteered for the early morning Mass, Bridges was left to serve nearly every Sunday, most of them with Fr. Bradley.
He said Bradley was “always an encourager.”
“He demanded that you strive to be the best version of yourself,” Bridges said.
Bridges also said that Fr. Bradley embodied service to others, a core tenet taught at H.N.S. Bridges said Bradley had a “great drive” and “great energy” in his sixties that shamed most 20-somethings. He was out in the community and speaking on WSON in attempts to raise funds for different projects which were not just for the school and church but also the entire community, Bridges said.
Former Holy Name student Kelsey Hargis, who recently won a seat on the Henderson City Commission, said Bradley was “kind, caring, and charismatic with a remarkable gift for connecting with students.”
“His innate ability to make everyone feel valued, welcomed and never judged was truly special,” Hargis said.
The attention he paid to every person he met with was something several interviewees spoke about.
“When you were standing in front of him, it didn’t matter if you were in jail, homeless, wealthy, suburban, you walked away feeling heard and understood,” said Dr. Daryl Hagan, a former principal at HNS who worked with Bradley for 15 years. “When you were with Father Bradley, you had his full attention.”
After he left HNS in 2010, Hagan was named the superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Evansville and now he’s the director of the Institute for the Transformation of Catholic Education at the Catholic University of America. Bradley helped him along his journey, Hagan said.
“He was a very important person for me that helped me grow within my ministry of Catholic education,” Hagan said.
Holy Name Parish’s current pastor, Fr. Richard Meredith, grew up in Grayson County, as did Bradley. He first learned of “Eddie Bradley” when he was in high school working at Houchens #22 grocery store in Leitchfield, which also happened to be where years earlier Bradley worked an earlier place of employment of Bradley, who is nine years Meredith’s senior.
Later Meredith would join Bradley at Owensboro Catholic High School when Bradley became principal there. They also worked together or studied at the same institutions during their lives.
Meredith called him a “Franciscan at heart” who was very concerned for the poor and interested in helping the people of a community.
“He did that with great fruitfulness in Owensboro and Henderson,” Meredith said.
Though they knew each other well, Meredith said he didn’t realize just how much Bradley had been able to accomplish in Henderson, adding he was impressed with what he did for the church, and also his work with Henderson officials and other clergy in the community.
Anne Thrasher Boyd, Mary Ann’s daughter, said she’s known Bradley since she was 12 years old and shared many meals together. He was around for virtually every family celebration—weddings, baptisms, first communions.
And though Bradley was often teased for his high-profile role as chaplain of Rick Pitino’s University of Kentucky and University of Louisville basketball teams, “he was much more than that. He was a tremendous leader, and fiscally responsible and successful with the tithes of the parishioners he served. He was a true servant to the poor, downtrodden and the elderly. He was instrumental in the establishment of many, many things that he helped to start or build.”
Boyd also mentioned the school’s endowment fund that Bradley started. She said many years ago he asked her husband, Brad, to head up a golf outing which would serve as a fundraiser for the endowment. The golf outing still occurs each summer, and the endowment is very successful, she said.
Like with the Thrashers, Bradley walked alongside families “whether it was fun or hard,” Beckert said. She said he was the priest who welcomed her husband Tom into the church in 2002, and he was also there last spring to preside over Tom’s funeral.
Mary Ann Thrasher said she and Bradley often exchanged text messages, checking up on each other. On Nov. 22, the date her husband, Cecil, died 21 years ago, he sent a rose with a note in remembrance of Cecil and thanking God for the Thrasher family that he got to love.
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Fr. Bradley’s funeral will be 1 p.m. Thursday at St. Stephen Cathedral in Owensboro. Read his obituary here.
