A Funk in the House Is Worth Two in the Bush

By Stephen A. Funk

The generation before the great baby boomers is the less-known silent generation. They do not get the credit like the boomers, but they did provide the glue and butter to the American system that was needed to hold our American way of life together. They historically document the perspective and view of one Midwestern silent generation and some major events that helped us get to where we are today.

The story will take you through the small town of El Reno, Oklahoma, to the bustling town of Colorado. In the long attempt to become a national political figure, something more important was found along the way. Humanity and individual accomplishments should be recognized by the least of us. There are numerous stories that the silent generation has, and it is important to spend as much time with your older family members to uncover the wisdom of their time. Also if you have any interest in Colorado philanthropy, this book might interest you.

This is the biography of my father, William Lewis Funk, otherwise known as the man behind the twenty-five-year Colorado Funk award for Building Community in Colorado. Dad has lived quite an eventful life from living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house to partying with the Lambda Chis at Oklahoma to becoming a JAG attorney to meeting and working with many historical figures from presidents and senators to the very well-respected wartime Japanese hero Minoru Yasi as well as other prominent leaders in Colorado.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524531799

Stephen A. Funk

As a Generation X kid, Stephen Funk is a normal dude living in Lakewood, Colorado. He loves to fly-fish, ski, play soccer, and hang out with family. He attended Drake University for three years and transferred to Metropolitan State University to finish his degree in psychology and philosophy. He just finished his master’s degree in education from Grand Canyon University—well, almost. Stephen Funk lives in Colorado with his wife of twenty-three years, Margaret, and two amazing children, Andrew and Emily.

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Copyright © 2016 by Stephen A. Funk.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2016912598

ISBN:       Hardcover       978-1-5245-3181-2

       Softcover       978-1-5245-3180-5

       eBook       978-1-5245-3179-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/12/2016

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CONTENTS

1) Prologue

2) Don’t Turn Your Back on Reality

3) A Typical American Family Room

4) Small Town America—El Reno

5) Cowtown Colorado in the ’50s

6) The Feisty Young Republicans

7) Put a Little Funk in the Colorado Congress

8) Corporate Philanthropy

9) Natalie Finds Her Silver Lining

10) A Funk’s House

11) Funk Award Recipients

PROLOGUE

To understand and explain the life of someone else I am finding that it is important to consider the source of the biography. If you have a little insight into the person writing the story, then you might have a better understanding of the main character. In other words, I always thought I was a pretty tough kid, growing up in Denver in the early 1980’s during the times when the Bloods and the Crips gangs were rearing their ugly head. I always thought those young boys were idiots and were only tough when they ran together as little gangbangers do. I was pretty sheltered growing up in the procoln Lutheran school systems. It is not here that I had to be tough, rather it was in the neighborhood by George Washington High School and the nearby rough and tumble areas of east Colfax. Working as a janitor at St. Joseph Hospital just east of downtown Denver, I would venture out with several of my fellow co-workers into small little neighborhood parks where we would play basketball until sundown. As a member of the 1986 state basketball championship team, I could hold my own on the court; but preferred playing on the streets. There were always hundreds of young men trying to display their pride through various methods. Some would show up with their latest and greatest tattoos, a new set of brass rings, or the new handguns they acquired at the local pawnshop.

Every game was the championship game between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Lakers. I was a quiet kid but was always enamored by the ambush of rapping insults that would flood the entire game. As a Lutheran kid I was taught to keep my mouth shut and just play the game, so I was always amazed at the players that would yap, critique, and talk trash the entire game. My other love was playing soccer. At an early age I would play in the men’s adult soccer leagues. Many of our games were at an inner city park called Sloan’s Lake, where all the teams we played were tough inner city Mexican teams. Every game would turn into some type of slug fest and brawl, and would generally end with at least one injured player. On one occasion I had a fan chase me on the field with a metal trash can and tell me that if he could catch me he was going to shank me. What the hell did that mean?

I continued my love of soccer by getting a division one soccer scholarship to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. One of the first games was a Notre Dame in 1987 playing in front of a crowd of two thousand for their homecoming. It was quite the change from playing at the little gang infested parks in Denver. My senior year, I had switched to Metropolitan State University. The last game I played in college turned out to be another slug fest. It was at the least suspecting place. Colorado Christian University had an NCAA division two school. It was an afternoon game and we were beating the crap out of the Christians. I went to strike the ball on net when losing participant came flying into me with two cleats up and snapped my tibia and fibia. Game Over.

Feeling sorry for myself that my soccer career was over, my father comforted me in the hospital with his wise words and let me know that life will go on. He also said that you need to focus on the entire perspective of how you got to where you are today. And not just you as an individual, but rather how We as a collective whole have gotten to where we are today. He would always tell me that not only does life go on but it also repeats itself. This is not a story about me; rather it is the story of my father and his gentle-hearted life philosophy in a tough world.

This biography attempts to compare political events, historical events, and life events that should be paid attention too because life repeats itself. This redundancy is a theoretical construct and truism that have been analyzed and witnessed throughout the ages and have been expounded upon by great thinkers: Byron, Hume, Churchill, Kissinger, C. S. Lewis, Roosevelt, and the list goes on. Even preschoolers can tell you that today was just like yesterday despite mothers