Monday, June 21, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.
The father of a family who loved to boat on Lake Mead drowned Saturday after saving his wife's life, family members said Sunday.
To his family, 57-year-old Kenneth Funk of Las Vegas is a hero.
When his wife, 56-year-old Annette Funk, washed overboard after a wave struck the front of the family's 20-foot pontoon boat, her husband grabbed a life vest and plunged in to save her.
The tragedy started after Annette Funk felt her shoulders burning under the early morning sun. She said she slipped her black life jacket off to put on a T-shirt when the wave swept over the boat.
Funk and two steamer-trunk-sized storage bins with her purse and towels in them went into the water.
"Mom was not a good swimmer," daughter Sabrina, who was not on the boat, said. "If she got in over her head she panicked."
Annette recalled that the lake was calm but wind kicked up waves.
"All of a sudden, a wave hit and tipped the boat," she said, sobbing. "I turned in the water and looked up at him and said, 'Help me, Hon.' "
Kenneth Funk, 5-foot, 11 1/2 inches tall, cut the boat's engine so it wouldn't run over her, grabbed a life vest and plunged in after his wife, his sweetheart since they met in 1962 as teenagers at Bell High in the City of Bell, Calif.
"They've never spent a night away from each other," Sabrina said, crying.
The gusty winds sent the boat drifting across the water.
"I couldn't even yell back to them," Annette said. "They couldn't hear me."
The couple treaded water for 40 minutes in the choppy lake. "He said for me to let him go," Annette said. "He did it out of love."
She watched her husband disappear under water.
"I screamed so long," Annette said. "I wanted to go with him. I wanted to take the vest off and go with him."
Sabrina's 11-year-old son, Daniel Dunes, and her former boyfriend, Gene Dunes, both of California, were adrift in the boat when Dunes called the National Park Service at 9:01 a.m. for help, according to the park service.
However, he did not know exactly where he was on the lake and didn't know their launch point; it was his second visit to boat on Lake Mead. The engine on the older model craft would not restart.
It took a National Park Service pilot, who took off from Boulder City, to spot the stranded boat and Annette Funk in the water, park service spokeswoman Roxanne Dey said.
The boat was floating in the middle of Boulder Basin, across from Burro Point on the Arizona side of Lake Mead, Dey said. Rangers later towed it to the Las Vegas Marina.
Park Service rangers at 10:01 a.m. picked up the woman, also found by the pilot overhead. The woman told them she saw her husband go under water and that he never came back up, Dey said.
The search for Funk ended at 10:33 a.m., Dey said. Funk's family returned to the lake Sunday.
"We got out at 5 o'clock this morning and went looking," Sabrina Funk said.
His body has not been found.
Annette Funk said that about a month ago her husband rescued a man, his boat and his pickup truck, all floating at Hemenway Harbor after he got into deep water. The lake is changing constantly, she said.
"Ken always kept life vests tied on the sides of the boat," she said.
The Funks have three children: Sabrina, Keith, 33, and Jessica, 22.
Jessica and her mom work at separate Albertson's markets in Las Vegas.
"When they pulled my Mom out of the water, she was in shock," Jessica said. "They need a better system of finding people."
Kenneth Funk was a slot technical manager at Sunset Station, his boss, Jeff Vonglodfelter, said Sunday night. Vonglodfelter had known Funk since December 2000.
"He was a hero," Vonglodfelter said. "He'll be dearly missed."
His family hopes hopes to warn others that as Lake Mead water levels continue to drop, the lake's appearance can change within hours and make boating and swimming treacherous.
Funk's is the sixth drowning at Lake Mead National Recreation Area this year, Dey said. There were seven drownings in the park during 2003.
On June 20 an unidentified man's body was discovered on the east side of lower Gypsum Wash of Lake Mead.
Visitors found the body fully clothed near the shoreline, Dey said.
A 36-year-old mother, Terri Ann Selden, also drowned at Lake Mead after she urged her 15-year-old daughter, Chelsea Petersen, to swim for the shore while the mother frantically searched for the family's 6-month-old white cocker spaniel after winds overturned their air mattress.
The June 9 outing that started as a day of sun and fun turned tragic when gusty winds sent the mattress 100 yards onto the lake in less than 10 minutes, rangers estimated. They left the puppy on the mattress, slipped into the water and tried to paddle to shore, but a wind gust tossed the mattress into the air.
Chelsea Petersen, a strong swimmer, and the puppy survived. The mother's body was recovered five days later.
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