Where Are They Now?

Bradley Keith grew up attending Highland Missionary Baptist Church. Throughout the course of his life he turned away from the values of the church, using drugs and spending time in prison. While in prison, he renewed his faith and turned his life around. In fact, earlier this week, he gave a revival sermon at the church he grew up in.

“It was a full circle journey,” he said. “When I walked up the steps to the pulpit last night, I said, ‘It took only a few steps down the aisle and up these stairs to get to this pulpit. But because of my backsliding for years, it’s been an arduous journey to reach this point in my life.’” “I’ve been humbled, and in a lot of ways humiliated as part of that process,” he went on. “But the message that I have for people today is that Jesus saves, and that he will pull your feet out of the miry clay and set them on a rock, if you open your heart to him.”

Keith graduated from Dublin High School in 2000, and went on to Tarleton State University to earn a bachelors in communications. While in school, he made some extra money covering sports for the Dublin Citizen. Once he finished college, he found a job at the Stephenville Empire Tribune as the sports editor.

In 2014, Keith stepped away from the Empire Tribune. Alongside some friends, he started The Flash Today, a free local news outlet covering Erath County.

Although his career was going well, Keith began drifting away from the values he was raised on. In 2017, he began using drugs, and in 2018 his drug use led to him being arrested and sent to prison.

He served first in Texarkana and then in Jacksboro. During his time incarcerated, Keith began to return to his former faith. “I was able to spend a lot of time getting back into the Word of God and back to the foundation of the way my parents raised me in the Highland Community and Highland Missionary Baptist Church,” he said.

Keith even got to preach for a prison chapel while in Texarkana. He kept it up when he moved facilities. “Last year, while I was incarcerated in Jacksboro, I had one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, actually,” he said. “I led a faith- based pod, leading daily Bible studies for [48 men]. It was so rewarding because I got to see men who had no direction get led to Christ.” Last year, in 2023, Keith was released from prison and he began to rebuild his life. One day, he tried to send a comforting message to one of his prison friends, in the form of a video devotional. Keith tried to send it over email but the file was too large; so he uploaded it to YouTube.

“I just sent him a copy and he took it and shared it with a bunch of people,” Keith said.

He started getting messages about the video telling him he should keep doing it. “So I started making one every day and now it’s been a few months and I have over 100 of them up,” he said.

His channel, Walking Free in Christ, now has nearly 100 subscribers. “Everything that I went through produced a testimony that hopefully [can help] other people who go through things see that they can overcome those things,” he said.

In terms of his career, Keith is slowly getting back on his feet. Finding a job as a convicted felon is not easy. He finally found a position at Allsups in DeLeon, where he works the night shift five days a week.

“I don’t care whether I’m sportswriting here or back on the radio again one day or whatever the case may be is that I want the way that people identify me — even if they know of my recent past and shortcomings and failures along the way — is that I love the Lord and try to serve him now.”

Keith currently lives in the Highland Community. So do his parents, Robert and Karen Keith, who have been a great source of inspiration in his life.

Keith offers the following advice to Dublin graduates: “Stay true to your roots, trust Jesus, follow the Lord, and don’t forget your rural values,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.