Keith Rapp

W. Keith Rapp (May 2, 1934 – August 16, 2022) was an American attorney in Oklahoma who served as judge on the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals, the intermediate appellate court in the state of Oklahoma, from 1984 to 2022. A native of Ohio, he earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Tulsa School of Law.

Biography Judge Rapp was born on May 2, 1934, in Wheelersburg, Ohio. He received his undergraduate degree from Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) and took graduate classes in mathematics and statistics from the University of Missouri, University of Minnesota and University of Arizona. Rapp then worked as an aerospace engineer on many major NASA projects before receiving his J.D. degree from the University of Tulsa. Rapp later earned a Master of Laws degree from the University of Virginia.

Military service and aerospace career From 1953 to 1955, he served in the United States Navy, completing two tours of duty in the Far East as an aerial navigator and electronics warfare operator with the VC-35. Later, he retired from the U.S. Naval Reserves as a Judge Advocate General Corps commander.

Legal career After completing law school at the University of Tulsa, Judge Rapp served as a public defender and city prosecutor in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He later served as a municipal judge in Bixby, Oklahoma, and then an alternative municipal judge in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After this, he was judge on the 14th District Court in Tulsa. He stood for election against incumbent Judge Fred DeMier for the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals in 1984. It was the first time a challenger had unseated an incumbent since the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals was created in 1969. (DeMeir and Rapp had met on a ballot once before, when running against each other in 1982 for a two-year term as Civil Appeals Court Judge.) DeMeir had won that match.

Personal life and death Rapp married the former Mary Lynn Clanton. They had three children, Elizabeth, Kathy and Joseph.