Florence Mayor Diane Whalen will join the family, friends and former colleagues of Charles William “Bill” Funk on Saturday to dedicate a plaque honoring the life of the former Boone County judge and prosecutor.
Funk, who died in 1989, also co-founded what is now the prominent Florence law firm of Busald Funk Zevely. Saturday’s ceremony will be held on the grounds of the law firm at 226 Main Street in Florence.
Bill Funk
A year after graduating from Chase Law School in 1960, Funk became prosecutor for the City of Florence. He left that post in 1964 to serve for 10 years as assistant county attorney under then-Boone County Attorney Bill McEvoy.
Funk was also Boone County master commissioner (1976-89) and domestic relations commissioner (1989).
In 1985, Funk became one of the first men in the Catholic Diocese of Covington to be ordained a permanent deacon. He served in that capacity at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Florence, where the Funk family had long been active, until his death.
“My father did a lot of good for a lot of people,” said Ted Funk, a partner at VonLehman CPA & Advisory Firm in Fort Wright.
Bill Funk and wife Mary Lee, now 89, raised four sons. Joining Ted and Mary Lee at the plaque ceremony will be Tom Funk, a district court judge in Grant County; Terry, who works for the Boone County court system; and Tim, a former reporter at the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina.
Also participating in the ceremony will be members of Busald Funk Zevely. Funk co-founded that law firm in 1974. By then, he had already been practicing law at 226 Main Street for 12 years.
Florence and Boone County were less populous then and had fewer attorneys.
“Funk was well-known and well-respected,” said E. André Busald, Funk’s longtime law partner.
