UW students can thank graduate student Joel Funk for the Garden in the Union to still be providing beer and alcohol.
Funk said “it seems like small potatoes” but he likes to think it’s because of him and his team that beer is still available somewhere on campus.
Funk at the time was an undergrad student and worked at the Branding Iron newspaper (BI) as editor in chief. His team found out about the possible stop in alcohol sales through social media. Funk and his journalistic team at the BI “dug in” to find out why and when this may happen.
Funk said it was “a great time of putting in work” with news pieces and editorials coming out on the topic.
Since then, Funk had graduated from UW and started work at the Laramie Boomerang reporting on the government and city council meetings. Here he learned a lot of the fundamentals to reporting that he still uses to this day.
Funk then went on to work at the Wyoming Tribune Eagle as a reporter. There he also covered the state government, military affairs, the city council and some general assignment reporting pieces as needed.
Funk said this was his favorite job ever due to the news team and government assignments.
A reporter never has an easy job though, and Funk started to feel the pressures of the job in 2019 when he was back at the Boomerang working as the managing editor.
The next step for Funk, and an opportune break from reporting, was to go back to school and satisfy his lingering interest in communications.
Funk questioned himself if he was “smart enough to do this” or “prepared for the work” in coming back to school. However, past mentors pushed him and intrigued him in academia enough to not hold back now.
As an undergrad, Funk claims that specifically UW professor Justin Stewart’s rigorous courses kept him very engaged with the concept of communication.
“He was a great springboard for the rest of my education,” Funk said.
Funk said he is unsure he would’ve stuck in school if it weren’t for Stewart. Instead, Funk possibly would’ve picked up touring again as he had been in a band before attending UW and in the beginning of his education here.
Funk said he loved being in a band and loved the traveling that came with touring. He also had an interest in reporting though and was pushed by friends and mentors to reach for journalistic opportunities.
Many students now are thanking Stewart and Funk’s friends for keeping him intrigued by communications and reporting as Funk is now teaching a class himself while completing his masters. His class is in the Communications and Journalism department titled Social Media Writing and Promotion and Journalism.
Funk said he was “over the moon to be given the trust of the department” when given this opportunity.
Maybe Funk will have an impact on a band crazed student in his class as Stewart had in the past.
