Suzie Wright

Gaylen Sue Raymo Wright, known to family and friends as Suzie, 81, of Waco, Texas, passed away on August 28, 2026. Born at Florence Nightingale Hospital in Dallas while her father served in the Pacific during World War II, Suzie was named by her mother's doctor — Gaylen for her father, Galen, and Sue for her mother's dearest friend.

She was the daughter of Galen LeRoy Raymo, a longtime salesman in the ladies' shoe salon at Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas, and Bettye Jo Vandiver Raymo. Suzie grew up in Grand Prairie and Dallas's Oak Cliff neighborhood, where a lifelong love of music took root — piano lessons that began before she could read, a childhood spent glued to Liberace and Victor Borge on television, and a voice that carried her through select choirs, drill teams, and folk trios all the way to the stage of the Texas Music Educators Association Convention.

Suzie earned her Bachelor of Music Education from East Texas State University in 1967, where she met James "Jim" Wright in a freshman theory class. The two married on August 26, 1967, at Rosemont Christian Church in Dallas, beginning a partnership that would carry them from Mitchell, South Dakota, to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to Laurinburg, North Carolina, and finally home to Texas, settling in Houston, Missouri City, Humble, and ultimately Waco.

Suzie devoted her life to music and to the children she taught. She sang professionally with Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral and Temple Emanu-El in Houston, directed church choirs across three states, and spent fourteen years teaching elementary music for Waco ISD, including at Sul Ross Elementary, where a grant she secured brought Orff-Schulwerk instruments to her students. When she and Jim moved to Waco, Suzie sang in the Waco Civic Chorus. In 1996 she co-founded Voyces A cappella, a Waco vocal ensemble she directed for several years. In retirement, she served as a docent at the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University, and sang in the choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

Above all, Suzie was a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. She and Jim raised their children, Tom Wright and Kathryn Salas, through decades of moves, hurricanes, and adventures, always with the family motto close at hand: "Never give up." In her later years, she found joy in reading, gardening, watercolor painting, travel — with national parks, Alaska, Hawaii, and New England among her favorite destinations — and above all in being "Nana" to her grandson, R.J.

Suzie is survived by her husband, Jim; her son, Tom Wright, and daughter-in-law, Connie Wright; her daughter, Kathryn Salas, and son-in-law, J.D. Salas; her grandson, Ramiro Salas; and the many students, choir members, and friends whose lives she touched with music.

A service will be held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, September 12, 2026, at 10 AM. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Central Texas Choral Society https://centraltexaschoralsociety.org/donate/