Hometown: Long Lane, Mo.
Family: Wife Michelle and children: Dylan (13), Delaney (11) and Daylee (8)
In Town: Chase Bradford is a busy man. His main job is providing maintenance for Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lebanon, Mo.
Approximately half his time is spent doing custodial work, and the other half is split between vehicle maintenance on the churches 15-plus buses and two vans, and facility maintenance on the church building and a bowling alley also owned by the church.
In addition to working at the church, he has a lawn mowing business and does haying on half shares, which he accomplishes during his vacation time from his job at the church.
His wife, Michelle, is also on staff at Tabernacle Baptist and their children attend the Tabernacle Christian Academy, which allows them to have more family time.
In the Country: On the farm, Chase is in the cattle business. He got his first black Angus heifer from his dad in 1992. When his father passed away in 2013, he inherited half of a house, which he exchanged for 16 head of black Angus from his grandmother.
Although interested in Herefords at that time, he continued to purchase black Angus. He now has 77 head of mixed black Angus and commercial cows in a cow/calf herd and three registered black Angus bulls.
The herd is spread over three properties, his own, plus two farms that are rented with a combined area of 373 acres. His pastures are mostly fescue with orchard grass which he also uses to make hay.
Chase sends his calves to market at 500 to 550 pounds, after they are weaned and vaccinated. He prefers to band the bull calves at a few days old.
His children help in the operation by feeding any bottle calves, and his son, Dylan, helps with haying and the lawn mowing business.
When hay season is in session, Dylan does the raking while Chase does the baling. Dylan has been driving a 1961 3010 John Deere tractor since he was 8 and helps feed large round bales to the herd when Chase is unavailable due to other duties.
Chase plans to expand his cattle operation and eventually work into an all registered black Angus herd.
