Rhesa Funk was born and raised on a wheat and cattle ranch in western Oklahoma. In 1981 after graduating high school, she left the small farming community of Ames, Oklahoma to attend Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she graduated with honors, receiving a Bachelor of Science in both Advertising and Journalism, with minors in Marketing and Biology.
While attending college she got her start in journalism in 1982 as a reporter for the campus newspaper, The Daily O’Collegian. Her first story, New Toilet Paper Hard for Students to Take, made the front page and was picked up by both the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI). It was printed in newspapers around the world. The story was written concerning the horrible quality of toilet paper stocked for the year throughout all OSU Dormitories, housing over 20,000 students. While the company selling the toilet paper had the lowest bid, Funk was able to prove the paper did not meet the specs of the bid, and reported her finding in her newstory. Each thin sheet of tissue contained small slivers of wood shards. Her journalistic efforts resulted in the University recalling over 500,000 rolls of toilet paper and replacing with a shard-free variety of bathroom tissue.
Additionally in 1982, Funk applied for and received another job working in the advertising department of the local Stillwater community newspaper, The NewsPress, a daily paper with distribution to nearly 23,000 readers. She was hired as an advertising department proofreader and fired from that position eleven days later. On the day she was fired as proofreader, one of the newspaper’s owners hired her as a part-time advertising sales rep. The position would be for a new territory with no established customer list. With zero base pay, no hourly wage, and only straight commission on her sales, Funk started calling on businesses in tiny towns surrounding Stillwater. The largest town on her account list had a population of less than 1000. When she wasn’t in class, or working her first job as a desk clerk in her dorm, or writing stories for her second job at The O’Colly campus newspaper, she was working her third job at The NewsPress, driving many miles, calling on itty-bitty business owners in neighboring small towns, attempting to convince them to advertise in the nearby newspaper – a steep learning curve in sales, time management and customer service.
Upon graduating from OSU in 1985 she was offered a fulltime ad rep position with the same newspaper in Stillwater, The NewsPress. She continued to call on her little out-of-town accounts, and as the new fulltime rookie, she added to her sales list a bunch of junky, bad-attitude accounts none of the other long-term sales reps wanted. By giving her customers expert marketing advise, some of those junky accounts turned into monster money-making businesses, which helped Funk win Salesperson of The Year numerous times.
Later she was promoted to Assistant Advertising Director, then to Advertising Director where she led The NewsPress in tripling its annual advertising revenue in a four-year time span. She and her advertising staff repeatedly won every statewide contest held by the Oklahoma Press Association (OPA) in all categories from creativity to sales totals. During her time as NewsPress Ad Director she was simultaneously hired by the OPA to teach sales training classes to other newspaper advertising staffs across the state of Oklahoma. After completing nearly seventeen years with the company, Funk left The NewsPress in 1998 when the Bellatti family sold the newspaper.
At that time Funk began doing freelance copywriting and news writing jobs. In 1998 she also opened her own sales training and consulting business, Speckled Stick Enterprises. She later expanded this business to include motivational speaking. She traveled the Midwestern United States training and speaking for corporations such as Texas Cotton Growers Association, Oklahoma/Kansas/Nebraska/Colorado/Texas/Arkansas Press Associations, Mary Kay Corporation, Amway Corporation, Oklahoma State University, University of Oklahoma, The High Plains Journal, Oklahoma Firefighters Association and more, including numerous sales franchises, as well as churches and non-profit organizations.
In addition to traveling for her company, in 2000 Funk joined a group of individuals in Stillwater, Oklahoma who were dedicated to building a Christian school. In 2001, while she continued to promote and sell her sales training videos and operate her freelance copywriting and press release business, she reduced her speaking engagements to allow time to work on the school vision. Her first days were spent sitting on an overturned five-gallon bucket at an elementary-sized school desk writing marketing material to promote the school. The group worked three years to build and launch the school, in which time Sunnybrook Christian School grew to over 200 students and became accredited in K through 8th grades. The school, which recently purchased a larger facility and changed its name to Stillwater Christian School, is in its eighteenth year of ministry and continues to serve hundreds of families in the north central Oklahoma region providing high-quality, accredited Christian education, grades Pre-K through 12.
About the time Funk was completing her work with the Christian school start-up project, her youngest son, who was barely a teenager, started an organic fertilizer business with his friend. They scooped animal poop from barns and pastures, dried it, and sold the composted material to those wanting all-natural, organic gardening fertilizer. The business exploded when the young duo renamed the business Manure Gourmet, donned chef outfits and created an organic Manure Menu complete with a buffet of premium poops which they sold at the local Farmer’s Market. Hand filled bags of Ewe Poo, Cow Wow, Stud Crud, Billy Chili (sheep, cow, horse, and goat poop, respectively) sold by the thousands of pounds to local vegetable and flower gardeners. The boys expanded their company, bought a dump truck and hired all their young teen friends to help.
Because Manure Gourmet had no one old enough to have a driver’s license, Funk became the dump truck driver and employee taxi for fifteen young teen boys. Additionally, she became the Business Manager and Public Relations Director for the company.
Within weeks Funk’s press releases about kids scooping poop for Manure Gourmet were featured in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. The boys soon had appearances and interviews on ABC, NBC, CBS and NPR, culminating with a full-page article in People Magazine and a trip to Hollywood for an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Manure Gourmet gift bags were sold online to customers in all fifty states and four foreign countries.
By 2004 the boys had scooped nearly a million pounds of poop. No one wanted a career in poop. A sale of the company fell through, and the decision was made to close the infamous Manure Gourmet.
Later that same year (2004) Funk returned to the newspaper business to help launch a start-up of a new weekly newspaper in Stillwater. She functioned as a one-person Ad Director, Classified Manager, Circulation Director and Co-Reporter. After the newspaper was successfully underway, (yes, it’s still in business), Funk once again started another business of her own, Funk Advertising Agency & Promotional Products, a full-service ad agency and advertising specialties store, which she still operates today.
Within a few years of opening, Funk won the prestigious Pyramid Award, the highest award in the promotional product industry for financially effective and creatively efficient customer campaigns. She received the award for four consecutive years, a feat accomplished by only one other person in the history of the award. In 2008 Funk moved the corporate company offices from Oklahoma to Missouri, where she continues to be recognized by the industry and her peers with awards and recognition.
In 2017, Funk launched a local online newspaper on social media. The explosive growth of the paper (over 3000 readers) resulted in her removing it from social media in mid 2018 with the plan to relaunch it in the future on a more sustainable and controllable platform.
Also in 2017 she and her husband launched a vacation rental business featuring eclectic cabins and glamper camper rentals on a creek in southeastern Missouri. Within the first year they were awarded SuperHost Status (Airbnb) and Premier Host (HomeAway/VRBO) recognition. They were featured in magazines and online forums with HipCamp and Glamping Hub, both international lodging organizations, and had articles about both rentals in St. Louis magazines. They are planning an expansion of their vacation rental business in 2020 with the addition of a skoolie bus rental.
In 2018 Funk once again expanded her advertising agency, moving to a much larger store-front location in southeastern Missouri. She expanded all areas of her business, adding printing, banners, signs, website development and social media management. She hired more employees and intends to continue expansion of Funk Advertising. Other business start-ups by Funk include an on-demand local labor force and cleaning company, an alteration and sewing company, and plans are in the works for a book of short stories, The Bell Ringer’s Prayer.
Funk and her partner of 25+ years, Evan Funk, live in a tiny house beside a crystal-clear creek in a massive forest in the Ozark Mountains. Together they’ve turned a small acreage of woody jungle into a homestead. In their free time they ride a motorcycle all over the United States, camping from a tiny motorcycle trailer they tow behind.
In 2020 Funk has plans to launch two additional businesses.
Contact Rhesa via email at: