LAHS senior Sam Nowell heads to NMSU for engineering, trap and skeet
Sam Nowell is heading from Los Alamos High School to New Mexico State, where he will study mechanical engineering and compete in trap and skeet.
Sam Nowell is leaving Los Alamos High School for New Mexico State University with a path that joins a demanding engineering major and a highly structured shooting-sports program. The Los Alamos senior plans to study mechanical engineering while shooting trap and skeet for the Aggies, a combination that puts academics and athletic discipline side by side.
Nowell’s profile from graduation week cast him as a student shaped by character, faith and family as much as by grades or activities. He was described as strong and stubborn, but stronger in his faith and character, with a steady belief that anything worth doing should be done well. He is the son of Anna and Jeremy Nowell, grounding his next step in the same family and community ties that have followed him through Los Alamos.
At New Mexico State, Nowell will join Aggie Trap and Skeet, a program that says it was founded three years ago and is the only collegiate shotgun team in New Mexico. The team practices at Butterfield Shooting Range in Las Cruces and follows SCTP, NSSA, NSCA, ATA and 4-H shooting-sports regulations. Its stated goal is to teach the fundamentals of clay target shooting while producing competitive shooters for the Scholastic Clay Target Programs’ Collegiate Shooting League, and to give New Mexico high school shooters an in-state option to continue their sport.
That makes Nowell’s move more than a simple graduation story. Mechanical engineering will demand the kind of sustained problem-solving Los Alamos has long prized, while trap and skeet will ask for repetition, focus and calm under pressure. His next chapter reflects a familiar local pattern, with Los Alamos students moving into technical fields while carrying the work habits and community values built here at home.
Los Alamos Public Schools said the Los Alamos High School Class of 2026 graduation was scheduled for Saturday, May 23, 2026, at 9 a.m. at Sullivan Field, with gates opening at 8 a.m. and no tickets required. For Nowell, the ceremony marked the end of one training ground and the start of another, from Sullivan Field to Las Cruces and on to the next stage of engineering and competition.
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