Obituary of Veonor Michael Sotak

Veonor "Vin" Sotak was the father seven children--Stephen, Christopher, Daniel, Matthew, Anna, Max, and Cynthia--and twelve grandchildren. He is survived by six of his seven children, the late Christopher Sotak having preceded him in death. Vin was born in Butler, Pennsylvania. His father, Michael, was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in the eastern United States. After two years of military service in the United States Coast Guard as a ship's cook, Vin attended Bowdoin College in New Brunswick, Maine, and graduated with a degree in Liberal Arts in 1947. From 1949-1951, he attended Harvard Divinity School. Based on his military experience, he had several food service businesses, including a bar in Rocky Flats, Colorado. He was in the real estate business in Colorado and other states for most of his career. Vin was also a writer who focused on the philosophy of life, having self-published a short work of essays and poetry, The Road We Travel. During the last decades of his life he collected a second series of occasional writings, The Road We Travel II. Vin was a religious naturalist who believed that the forces of life and the universe are the reference point for life and meaning. A lover of aphoristic wisdom, Vin's sayings were shared with his family and friends on plaques. His most recent favorite sums up his philosophy of life: "Luck Follows the Pursuer." His favorite book was E.O. Wilson's, Sociobiology. Services will be private at a future date.