WALLY FUNK RETURNS TO OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

Oklahoma State University alumna Wally Funk returned to her alma mater as the oldest person to reach space aboard the Blue Origin flight on July 20.

Funk graduated from OSU in 1960 and was a Flying Aggie who won the Outstanding Female Pilot, Flying Aggie Top Pilot, and the Alfred Alder Memorial Trophy awards as she paved the way for women in aviation. She also made history as the first female civilian flight instructor for the military at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

In 1961 she was at the top of her class in the Mercury 13 program, a group of women who went through the same training as the male astronauts selected for NASA’s Project Mercury. The women lobbied Congress and the White House to be included in the program, but none ever were. Funk had been predicted to be the first woman in space – in 1961, but she finally made it aboard Blue Origin. Wally Funk arrived at Stillwater Regional Airport (SWO) from Dallas and was greeted by a marching band and deplaned to an orange carpet to commemorate her time at OSU. Funk remarked that she was eager to see how the campus had evolved since she left in 1960. “I just loved it here, I loved Oklahoma State,” she said.