Agricultural News
Founding Board Member Bob Funk Pledges Five Million Dollars to Help Establish an Endowment for the Oklahoma Youth Expo
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 06:37:11 CDT
Longtime Oklahoma Youth Expo (OYE) Board Member Bob Funk announced during the grand drive at of the Oklahoma Youth Expo, held Thursday evening, that he and his family would be donating $5 million to help establish an endowment for the organization, to help generate operating expenses for the show to continue on into the future.
Once fully funded at ten million dollars, the endowment is expected to generate $500,000 to $600,000 a year in interest and will be used to help meet the organization's expenses throughout the year. A fund raising campaign is now in the early planning stages to raise a matching five million dollars that has been pledged by the Funk family.
Funk spoke with Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays following the grand drive. You can listen to Hays' interview with Bob Funk at the Oklahoma Youth Expo, by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of this story.
"I've been thinking for the last 15 years how we could keep this going," he said. "I really want the young people of Oklahoma to know how much we appreciate them and how much we're willing to give them for the effort they put in."
Following Funk's gesture, it was announced that the show will start awarding the "Bob Funk OYE Legacy Scholarship Award" to be given each year, beginning in 2018, to the graduating senior with the best combined ten year show career with OYE. Future winners will compete for the prize in leadership, academic excellence and show ring success. The Bob Funk Legacy scholar will be chosen from OYE's top eight academic performers each year and will add an additional $5,000 to the winning purse for a total of $10,000 in scholarship funding.
"It's not us that's made the difference," Funk said acknowledging all those who make OYE a success, "it's the people that's made the difference."
Our Coverage of the 2017 Oklahoma Youth Expo is a service of ITC Great Plains, Your Energy Superhighway- learn more about this high voltage, transmission only utility and their commitment to the communities they serve which is the cornerstone of their business- click here for their website. We also salute the title sponsor of the 2017 OYE, McDonalds- click here for more information about how McDonalds sources USDA inspected beef from US ranchers- as well as the other responsibly grown food you enjoy under the Golden Arches.
Reports will be heard daily on great radio stations that cover Oklahoma and that are a part of the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network- on the internet- our reports of the 2017 OYE can be found on the Blue Green Gazette page- available here. We will be adding pictures daily to our official 2017 OYE Album of Photos on FLICKR, found here.
For more information about the Oklahoma Youth Expo, click here for the home page of the OYE website.
Click here for the complete schedule of all of the events at the 2016 Oklahoma Youth Expo.
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