My dad, Keven, passed on September 28, 2026. I gave this eulogy at his funeral at Pikes Peak National Cemetery on October 26. This is the text as I delivered it. You can also read his obituary.

Good afternoon. For those who don’t know me, I’m Matt, Keven’s son.

I want to start with a family secret. We’re aliens.

Before I was born, Dad lived at the Flying Saucer trailer park in Denver. I don’t think that was a coincidence. He and I also share a little dent in our skulls. So did his mom, and so does my sister Caren. The official family position is that it’s how we receive transmissions from the mothership. It’s hereditary. So if I pause up here at any point, I’m just checking for updates.

Dad was an Air Force veteran, a private pilot, a lifelong Broncos fan, and an incredibly smart software engineer. He was also an incredibly loving human being. Those two things don’t always come in the same package. I’ve come to think that was his real genius.

The people he worked with saw it too. Since he passed, Pam has heard from so many of them, and they keep reaching for the same words: smart, patient, kind, funny. One said that smart and patient is an unusual combination. Another said he and many others became better people because of Dad’s example. A lot of them simply called him a mentor.

My favorite came from his old office mate. He said Dad was the best office mate ever, and then, almost as an afterthought, added that he was an amazing coder too. I think that order tells you everything.

And one of them said he’ll always be “Alpha-Geek.” Dad would have put that on a business card.

He always met me where I was.

Dad and I both went to Colorado State. I’d like the record to show that he was a much better student than I was. Somewhere in there, I decided I wanted to drop out and become a professional pilot. A lot of parents would have picked up the phone and talked me off the ledge. Dad lived 120 miles away, and he came and took me to dinner instead. He told me to do what made me happy, and that he’d support me no matter what.

Now, for a man who researched anything over a hundred dollars, a 240-mile round trip for one dinner tells you exactly how much that conversation mattered to him.

What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was that Dad was a private pilot himself. He knew exactly what I was chasing. So he didn’t talk me out of it. He just made sure I knew someone was in my corner.

The flying stuck. I’m a private pilot now too. I also ended up with a computer science degree and a career in software, just like him. Eventually I decided I’d rather secure software than write it. Which means I’ve spent years cleaning up after engineers like my dad. He never once apologized.

This Father’s Day, I got to take him up in my own airplane. It was his first flight with me, and it turned out to be his last. I offered him the controls. He wouldn’t take them. He’d spent my whole life letting me fly my own way. That day, he was happy to just sit back and let me fly him.

He treated all of us kids that way. In our house there were no step-kids. There was no “his” and “hers.” There was just family, and family was the thing he valued most.

It spilled over, too. Somewhere along the way my cousins started calling him “Uncle George.” Technically, his first name was George. He just preferred Keven. So when my cousins used it, it was their way of letting him know they had the goods on him. And whenever he was teasing them, and he was always teasing them, they’d fire it right back: “Okay, Uncle George.”

My sister put it best. She said Dad always went out of his way to connect with everyone, and it was never surface-level. He made people feel seen.

You could see that at the end. In his last few weeks, family and friends traveled in from across the country just to spend a few minutes with him, including my aunt from his first marriage. That’s who he was. Even the family that technically wasn’t family anymore was still family. People don’t cross the country for a few minutes unless you made them feel seen for a lifetime.

Now. We need to talk about Dad and money.

Dad was cheap. He’d say “frugal.” He was wrong, but he’d say it. If something cost more than a hundred dollars and you could hold it in your hand, it was getting researched within an inch of its life.

But experiences were different. Dad loved Disney World. While we were growing up, he took the whole family every four years. To be clear, he researched Disney too. He just bought it anyway. And after we all moved out, he kept going back with Pam, because apparently the kids were never the point.

He spent a lot of his last several years on the road in the RV, including staying at Fort Wilderness. Which, if you think about it, is the most Dad thing possible: Disney World, but cheaper.

And it wasn’t just Disney. When I was sixteen, Dad took me out of the country for the first time: London, Paris, Germany, Rome. Hawaii for my high school graduation. Mexico for Allison’s graduation. Disney, of course, for Caren’s. Anna, the youngest, got a trip all to herself, which the rest of us have decided not to be bitter about. In our house, a diploma was basically a travel voucher.

Then there were the Tetons and Yellowstone, his old Air Force stomping grounds in Virginia, Washington, DC, the Alamo and the Riverwalk, Georgia, and more trips than any of us can remember.

And anywhere we had family. Partly because he loved his family. And partly because family doesn’t charge for the guest room.

He even tried to get all of us to the very last Space Shuttle launch. But NASA kept moving the date, and after rebooking everyone’s flights over and over, even Dad found his limit. Which, for a family that takes calls from the mothership, was a real missed opportunity.

He was also the person I called. Building something, electrical, anything to do with taking care of the house. Every homeowner has someone they call before they call a professional. Mine was Dad. I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried about my house now.

One of the things I admire most about him is that he could change his mind. Growing up, I got to watch him and Pam debate. Real, healthy debate. And sometimes he lost, and he’d say so. He was an engineer. When the data changed, he updated the model.

I didn’t realize how much that shaped me until much later. If I can be wrong today, and admit it, and change my mind, that’s because I watched him do it first. Pam, thank you for winning some of those.

Dad was funny. Genuinely funny. He loved to tease, he loved a good bit, and he’d want you laughing today. My sister also wanted me to mention that he raised the most hilarious children. That’s her opinion. I’m told it was his too. The jury, which is all of you, is still out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Dad left me. He was cheap, so it’s not a yacht.

It’s a dent in my head that picks up signals from space. It’s Colorado State, where we were both Rams. It’s a love of flying, a career in computers, and the instinct to research anything over a hundred dollars.

And it’s the Denver Broncos. In our family, that was never optional. I’m proud to report I’ve carried on the tradition: my wife and kids are now Broncos fans. Some of them even volunteered. Dad would have called that the best recruiting work I’ve ever done.

But the things that matter most, he didn’t leave in a will. He left them in how he treated people. In the way he made every one of us feel seen. That’s the inheritance I’m actually trying to live up to.

So, Dad. I know you’re back with the mothership now. Caren and I will keep the channel open. And I want you to know the message came through loud and clear: Do what makes you happy. Research anything over a hundred bucks. Spend the money on the trip. Show up for your family, all of it. And when you’re wrong, say so.

We love you. Go Broncos.