SMU celebrated five outstanding alumni leaders at the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award presentation and dinner, including two familiar faces from the Park Cities community, Rev. Paul Rasmussen and Trevor Rees-Jones.
The honorees were recognized for their extraordinary achievements, outstanding character, and good citizenship on Thursday, Oct. 30 during SMU’s Homecoming Week. The Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest honor the University can bestow upon its graduates.
Rev. Paul Rasmussen
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Rev. Paul L. Rasmussen ’04 earned an undergraduate degree in history from Centenary College of Louisiana and a Master of Arts from the University of Richmond before heading to the Hilltop for his Master of Divinity from SMU’s Perkins School of Theology.
A fourth generation minister, Rasmussen currently serves as senior minister at Highland Park United Methodist Church (HPUMC) in Dallas. Before entering seminary in 2000, Rasmussen served as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Centenary College for five years and as the national sales director for SportsCare USA, Inc. He left the corporate world to pursue his call to ministry.
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In 2001, Rasmussen began preaching in Cornerstone, HPUMC’s contemporary worship service, and by 2013, he had become the 11th senior pastor to serve this congregation of more than 15,000 members. He has overseen several new church plants, including the renovation and reopening of Munger Place Church in 2011, followed by Grove Church in 2017, and Uptown Church in 2021.
Rasmussen has also played a key role in the expansion of the church’s main campus with the opening of the Tolleson Family Activity Center in 2019, home to HPUMC’s Belong Disability Ministry and Family Ministry.
Rasmussen is dedicated to keeping outreach at the heart of his ministry. “For over 100 years, HPUMC has led the way of Christian service in the city of Dallas, and we never let up on that charge,” he said. “God has blessed this church in so many ways, and we have an obligation to leverage those blessings for the greater good of the city.”
Trever Rees-Jones
The second of three generations of SMU alumni, Trevor D. Rees-Jones ’78 earned his Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College, followed by a Juris Doctor from the SMU Dedman School of Law.
Rees-Jones has become a formidable presence in the Dallas law, business, and oil and gas industries. After 10 years as a small independent in the oil and gas business, Rees-Jones founded Chief Oil & Gas in 1994, an early operator during the development of the Barnett Shale field in North Texas. At the time of its last sale in March 2022, Chief was one of the largest privately owned producers of natural gas in the nation.
Rees-Jones is past president of the Dallas Petroleum Club and the Dallas Hardhatters Committee (now the Dallas Wildcatters Committee), a past member of the Board of Trustees at Dartmouth College, and an emeritus member of the TCU Board of Trustees.
His honors include induction into the All-American Wildcatters and the Folsom Award for civic and community service (2011); the Circle Ten Council Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, the Texas Oil & Gas Association Distinguished Service Award, and induction into the Junior Achievement’s Dallas Business Hall of Fame (2013); induction into the Entrepreneurs for North Texas “Ring of Entrepreneurs” by Communities Foundation of Texas and the Texas Business Hall of Fame (2014); the L. Frank Pitts Award for Energy Leadership from SMU and the Highland Park High School Distinguished Alumni Award (2016); and the Horatio Alger Association in 2023.
In 2006, Rees-Jones and his wife, Jan, established The Rees-Jones Foundation, which has granted more than $800 million to programs in North Texas, Africa, and India. Core areas of focus include child abuse and neglect, care for disabled children and youth, youth character development, community development, and animal welfare.
A passionate Texan and collector of Western Americana, Trevor Rees-Jones has also pledged funding and a significant collection to establish the Rees-Jones Library of the American West at SMU.
