Mrs. Idaho: This queen means business

SANDPOINT — Katherine Funk-Adlard was putting away her tablet to get ready for her four kids’ arrival home.

She’d turned it off and was about to put it away when she got the feeling that she needed to log onto Pageant Planet and look for a pageant system to compete in. A friend had been trying to convince her for years to take part but the timing had never seemed right. She’d kept the idea on a back burner but had never felt the need to do anything. That March day, however, was different. That day, that internal voice was insistent.

So, Funk-Adlard turned the tablet back on and logged into the website. She looked around and, as she was putting the tablet away — again — she got the sense that she needed to create a profile. So, as the kids walked in the door from school, she directed them to get a snack and once again, logged back into the tablet and created a profile. She had just closed the tablet when she got the sense that she needed to make some phone calls.

“OK,” I guess I’m doing this today,” Funk-Adlard said, recalling the chain of events, adding she has learned to listen to that voice, a combination of her prayers and intuition.

She returned to the website — she described it as a hub for the pageant world — and began looking through the directory. She picked one and called the number.

Almost two hours later and she and the woman on the other end discussed a wide range of issues, both asking questions and talking. At the end of the conversation, the woman from United States of America Pageants told Funk-Adlard that she really needed to take the leap and take part in pageants.

When she asked what she needed to do next, she didn’t expect the reply she got. The newest of the three major pageant systems, USOA, had been interviewing potential candidates for Idaho unbeknownst to Funk-Adlard when she made her call.

“We actually don’t have a delegate for Idaho,” the woman told Funk-Adlard. “I feel like you would be a great delegate and that you would represent the brand well; would you like to be a great delegate for Idaho.”

Surprised, but excited, Funk-Adlard agreed and said yes. The woman sent over a contract that day and Funk-Adlard dove into reprsenting the state, speaking to women’s groups, helping out at local charities and speaking out about women in business — the basis of her platform.

“What I was really excited about doing pageantry for was speaking about my platform,” she said. “It’s not like a beauty pageant like it was in the 1950s. There’s so many accomplished, just sophisticated, amazing and smart women that are involved in pageants.

“The platform piece gives you a megaphone. I’m really passionate about service and being able to help other people so it gives me an amplification but with a crown.”

While many platforms focus on fighting a disease or working to help with some kind of disability — all great causes, Funk-Adlard said — she felt called to follow her passion and celebrate women business owners and entrepreneurs.

So Funk-Adlard came up with “This Queen Means Business” for her platform as a way to blend her work with the National Association of Women Business Owners, which helps women business owners with support, ideas and legislation, with her pageant responsibilities. The two are complementary, she said. the Mrs. USOA Pageant ‘s mission is to empower, advocate and inspire everyone while NAWBO’s is

Funk-Adlard said serving as Idaho’s Mrs. USOA is an honor, not for any personal reasons but for the good she can do through wearing the crown. It’s a chance for her to share her message that “a woman who can run her own business, finances and career, is a woman who is more confident and stable for when life hits you upside the back of the head and drops you to your knees.”

She wants to help other women claim their own space, to inspire, advocate for and educate others and help them follow their own dreams.

“It’s something I’m really passionate about because at one point in my life I ended up homeless with my four kids in the middle of the city, fighting off drunk men in the middle of the night,” she said. “It’s important for women to be able to have something that’s sustainable for yourself because life can throw you curveballs.”

A self-described serial entrepreneur, Funk-Adlard is in demand as a speaker and trainer and is writing a book, “Reasons to Succeed”, about your internal grit and the ability to overcome and the power that comes with being an “overcomer.”

“When you dig deep, and you have faith in yourself and others and kind of do what I’m doing right now where my bags are getting packed and I going on this journey [to Las Vegas, Nev.] for the national pageant.”

That’s despite losing her major sponsor at the last minute. After months of promising the funding was coming, the sponsor told her during Christmas break that they would have to pull the funding due to a problem on their end. Due to a major family medical emergency, she’s unable to cover the costs on her own as she had planned after learning of the sponsor’s decision.

Funk-Adlard has been working to raise the money to take part in the pageant. She’s raised about $2,000 of the $5,000 she needs.

“I’m heading off anyways with faith that it will work out,” she said. “I’ve prayed about it, and I still feel I need to do this, and I have the feeling that it will work out,” she added.

But time is running short — the national pageant is this coming Presidents Day weekend in Las Vegas.

Bit by bit, friends of friends and smaller sponsors have come forward to help, and a master seamstress — the friend of a friend — is sewing her evening gown. In addition to the evening gown, Funk-Adlard has had to come up with an outfit for the pageant’s patriotic number, an outfit for the opening number, and a swimsuit as well as an interview outfit.

As a child, she had a learning disability and was in special education classes until her junior year when, through determination and a faith in herself, she worked them out on her own and landed on the National Honor Society in her senior year. That same drive saw her go from being 235 pounds to losing 115 pounds; from being a homeless single mom to a high-ticket closer, trainer, speaker and soon-to-be author; and from being depressed following a separation and divorce in 2013 to being crowned as Idaho’s Mrs. United States of America.

“The rebuild of my life has been a journey of honoring the struggles, of bringing the joy and happiness back in my life on purpose, with a purpose,” she said. “Coming out from the shadows, directly into the literal ‘limelight,’ with a crown, of all things.

“This opportunity has been powerfully orchestrated only by a loving Heavenly Father who knew how to lift me up out of my hole.”

Funk-Adlard is hoping the community can help her with the funding gap — and helps her win the “People’s Choice Award.” Each dollar counts as a vote and the woman who wins the award receives an extra chance in the voting in helping determine the national pageant winner. All proceeds raised in the vote are given to each candidate’s platform — in Funk-Adlard’s case, NAWBO.

In addition to volunteering in schools, Funk-Adlard also was a Webelos den leader for several years and founded Queeen Bees Dress to Impress, rallying the community to provide free prom dresses and makeover sessions for 32 local girls for their high school prom. Many of these girls may not have been able to attend their prom if it weren’t for Queen Bees alleviating that economic pressure for their families. It also helped build confidence in the girls, and she plans to take it to greater heights again this year during her reign.

“I never even thought i would actually ever enter a pageant, let alone compete on the national stage as I am now,” she said. “The United States of America’s Pageant has lived true to their mission of “empower women, inspire others, and uplift everyone. They are part of the blessings and miracles in my life.”

To vote for Funk-Adlard for the “People’s Choice Award,” go online to unitedstatesofamericapageants.com/product-page/mrs-Idaho . To donate to Funk-Adlard’s campaign on GoFundMe, go online to http://bit.ly/2Ouri1F .

Caroline Lobsinger can be reached by email at clobsinger@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @CarolDailyBee.