Raymond James Trapp

Surrounded by his loving family, Raymond James Trapp, age 85, beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, was escorted peacefully to Heaven on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at his home in Dallas, Texas. After several traumatic falls and life-threatening conditions finally took a toll on his body, Ray came home from the hospital under the care of hospice and received many special visits from long-time friends and loved ones.

Ray was born on May 13, 1940, in Chicago, IL to August and Jane Trapp, and he leaves behind two younger adoring sisters: Darlene Clarke and Shirley Mullally. He graduated from St. Rita Catholic School in 1958 and was Valedictorian and President of the graduating class of Villanova in 1962 with a degree in English. He earned his Masters of Business from Northwestern University (a.k.a. The Kellogg School of Business) in 1964, where he was also President of his senior class. After obtaining his masters, Ray began a highly successful career in advertising, which started at Ogilvy and Mather, Inc. in NYC. He moved to Dallas, TX in 1971, where he became VP of the Bloom Advertising Agency. During his tenure at Bloom in the 1970’s, Ray contributed as one of the bold & innovative thinkers working alongside such aviation industry icons as Herb Kelleher and Lamar Muse, to shape Southwest Airlines into the company that it is today. He had many other very memorable accounts over the years, including Johnson & Johnson, American Express, Coca-Cola, Dove, L’Oréal, and General Motors.

In 1980, Ray left Bloom and was named president of Keller-Crescent’s Southwest advertising unit, still based in the Dallas area. He left Keller-Crescent to take a position as President of McCann-Erickson Asia, and from 1990 to 1998, the Trapp family was based in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taipei as Ray’s advertising career expanded into international marketing. During that time, they vacationed in many exotic places, including India, Nepal, China, Thailand, and Egypt.

In 2001 Ray began a second career in investment banking. He worked alongside investment banking experts Dan Flick and David Mahmood, offering his years of experience and knowledge in marketing.

Ray is the proud father of four wonderful children who have all survived him; Laura Trapp Burton (age 59), Paula Trapp Duke (age 54), Jordan C. Trapp (age 44), and Jessica M. Trapp (age 39). He is also survived by his loving wife of 8 years, Kay Watkins Trapp, her daughter Monica (age 53), and grand-daughter Rachel (age 27), his 4 grandchildren: Jordan (age 33), Josh (age 28), Claire Isabelle (age 24), and McClain (age 3), 2 step grandsons: Corey and Codey Duke (ages 24 and 22), and 1 great-granddaughter: Vivienne (age 22 months). Ray also stayed very close with the extended family of his deceased wife of 32 years, Cathy Coffey, who all live in the Dallas area.

The family has loved hearing about the impact that Ray had on the lives of so many dear friends and colleagues over the years. A few descriptive terms have been “advertising royalty”, “one of a kind”, “smartest man I ever knew”, and “mentor”. We even learned that during his most recent career, within Allegiance Capital, they had coined a verb for when something became “Trapper-ized”, meaning it was scrubbed to the utmost degree of detail. This year the family has been truly impressed by the positive attitude that Ray continued to exhibit through his many health challenges. We are thankful that he is no longer suffering within the limitations of his physical body.

Ray loved flowers and trees. He would be honored if you planted a Memorial Tree in his name. This can be arranged with the help of several organizations, but our favorite is memorialtree.com. The trees are planted in various U.S. forests, and we love their motto: “As one life ends, another life begins”.

A Memorial Service will be conducted at 4pm on Friday, October 3rd, 2025 at Park Cities Baptist Church in the Ellis Chapel, 3933 NW Parkway, Dallas, TX 75225. A Reception will follow immediately thereafter in the Ellis Parlor.

A livestream of the service will be available at:

https://pcbcspecialevents.online.church/

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Raymond James Trapp, please visit our floral store.