16-year-old Bend student memorialized with fond memories and love

Published 5:45 am Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Mourners gathered in the Bend High gym bleachers Saturday afternoon, ready to honor Bradley Hughes: a friend, brother, student, cousin, coworker and athlete.

The family requested a moment of silence to start the memorial. Taylor Swift’s song “Shake It Off” broke it almost immediately. Bradley Hughes’ friends and family rose to dance, because that was what Bradley would have wanted.

Bradley, 16, died in a car crash Jan. 9 in Redmond. About 200 friends, family and community members attended the Bend High junior’s memorial service, as his loss left ripples in the community.

He was an athlete who ran track and played football, worked at a local well-known pub and had a large network of friends and family.

The gym was filled with reminders of Bradley. Snack baskets with butterscotch candies and Welch’s Fruit Snacks were placed throughout the bleachers, because Bradley loved snacks, and a slideshow of photos played throughout the celebration of life.

Offering love and support

“He had an extraordinary ability to find joy and spread it to others,” said his uncle Jason Schneider, who led the memorial and shared a story about a Thanksgiving when Bradley moved several dishes, including the gravy, closer to the end of the table where he and his cousin were sitting for easier access to their favorites.

Bradley’s parents, siblings, aunts and uncles and friends shared their favorite memories. His manager at Bend Brewing Co. spoke about interviewing him and how he’d worked his way up from a dishwashing position to line cook in just a few short months.

Bradley’s mother, Julie Hughes, said, “He was always worried about me, and I would always tell him that it’s my job to worry about him … We’d always offer our love and support to everyone, and I truly feel like Bradley did that. He tried to never leave anyone out or make anyone feel less than anyone else.”

His father, Marshall Hughes, shared a memory of the last morning he saw Bradley, curled under blankets in bed against the cold. Before Marshall left the room, Bradley asked him to turn the heat up.

“I am absolutely privileged to be his father. He made me look good,” he said to light laughter. “I don’t know how one person could love so much and be so happy all the time.”

While driving down SW Canal Boulevard in Redmond on Jan. 9, Bradley’s Subaru Legacy crossed over the dividing line and had a head-on collision with another car. He suffered serious injuries and was taken to St. Charles Bend, where he later died.

McKenna Hoole is part of the unified sports program, an athletics program in which students without disabilities work with students with disabilities. Bradley was a peer mentor for the program, and often worked with the students who had the highest needs.

“He would tell me about his dreams to become a special education teacher, and his yearning to drive somewhere and end up at a place where he could change lives. During this, he also created a space where I could tell him about my dreams, and he would listen and advise,” Hoole said.

In the hallway leading into the gym, two posters waited with cups of colorful pens and markers for people to write messages. Photos of Bradley were surrounded by electric candles. A display reading “Bradley Hughes Forever 16” stood outside the gym. Family and friends wore specially made sweatshirts in honor of Bradley.

Several people spoke about Bradley’s love of video games, as well as snacks and Gatorade.

Hannah Hennessey, who grew up with Bradley, shared that he was always the first person to text her on Christmas and her birthday. He’d go to her tennis matches and she’d go to his football games. She remembered a day when he kept pulling different snacks from different places around his room and offering them to her, but never actually sharing. The two had a running joke around planning their wedding.

“Even if it was just a joke, it was easy to tell he wanted me happy,” she said. “We got to do so much together but there’s so much we didn’t get to do.”

“I love my little brother immensely. Anytime I could I picked on him. I wish I could pick on him one more time,” said his older brother Damon Hughes. “I played a lot of video games with my little brother. After all of this, took me a couple days to get to the Xbox … I love him, I still do, I always will.”

His sister Chloe Hughes shared that she missed sitting in Bradley’s car with him and playing video games together. He always treated her friends like they were his sisters too, she said.

“Bradley was my brother, but most importantly he was my best friend,” she said. “I would do anything to bring you back with us.”