Community qualities lure couple back to start business

Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Ryan and Melanie Bradley have returned, with their sons, to McCook to open "Bradley Machine and Pump Repair" at 1225 East A. Kycen will be 7 years old in October; he's a first grader. Kreed is three and a brand new preschooler this fall. The boys' grandparents -- thrilled that the boys are in McCook -- are Paul and Camy Bradley and Joel and Sharon Bedore. Their great-grandparents are Keith and Norma Boner and Janet Bradley. All are from McCook. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Gazette)

McCOOK, Neb. -- The lure of family, good schools and business opportunities has brought a young couple back to McCook, to make it their home with their sons.

Ryan Bradley, a 2001 graduate of McCook Senior High, opened "Bradley Machine and Pump Repair" this summer, after moving "back home" with his wife, Melanie (Bedore), also a 2001 MHS graduate, and their sons, Kycen, almost 7 years old, and Kreed, 3.

The couple likes the feel of home in McCook and having grandmas and grandpas close by. "And McCook's school system is great," Ryan said, grinning a lop-sided grin -- not at all prejudiced because his grandmother, Janet, taught kindergarten in McCook Public Schools for 19 years.

And Ryan is impressed with the opportunities available in the machine shop and irrigation pump industries in McCook and throughout Southwest Nebraska. "There's room to grow here in each industry," Ryan believes.

Ryan left McCook in 2002, earning a degree in machining at Southwest Community College at Milford, Nebraska. He then began working for Sargent Irrigation in Grant, and he and Melanie (married in 2006) and the boys lived in Ogallala.

When it came time for Kycen to start school, Ryan and Melanie started feeling nostalgic about home and its school system. They moved to McCook in 2013.

Ryan has capitalized on his education and 12 years of experience to open his own machine and irrigation pump repair business, in a location most easily described as the building south of the bread store.

The dock building at 1225 East A, just off of East Highway 6-34, went up as a transfer station in the 1920's. "They shipped stuff in and out of here," Ryan said. It was also Ideal Linen, and most recently, Plastics Plus.

Inside the historic building now, Ryan has his machine shop and welding and fabrication equipment. He also has the resources and capabilities available to pull, build, rebuild and install irrigation pumps.

He and Melanie are renovating the inside of the building, removing some walls and planning an office inside other walls. Outside, they're fixing windows and doors and painting a dark, industrial gray.

Ryan can be reached at (308) 340-5117; the shop is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.

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