Los Alamos trumpet player Joey McCulloch heads to UNM for business

Joey McCulloch’s path out of Los Alamos High School ran through a trumpet bell, not just a classroom. The Class of 2026 senior planned to head to the University of New Mexico this fall to study business, carrying with him years of work in LAHS jazz band, LAHS marching band, Estrella Mariachi, and the Quemazon Jazz Project.

His profile fit a familiar Los Alamos pattern: students who move easily between academics and the arts, building skills in more than one lane at once. McCulloch’s musicianship stretched beyond the high school campus and into Santa Fe, where he performed with the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra through Estrella Mariachi and the Quemazon Jazz Project. That mix of local and regional ensembles underscored how Los Alamos students often find opportunities that reach well past the county line while still staying rooted in the community.

The music programs themselves reflect that broader reach. The Santa Fe Symphony’s Jazz Project serves intermediate and advanced players in Santa Fe and Los Alamos, with an emphasis on improvisation, groove, ensemble performance, and community-event showcases. Its Mariachi Project includes three ensemble levels and beginner violin and guitar classes, with instruction in both Spanish and English. For a student like McCulloch, those settings offered more than performance time. They demanded consistency, listening, timing, and the ability to work inside a group, all habits that translate naturally into college and the workplace.

McCulloch’s move into business at UNM adds another layer to the Class of 2026 story. The Anderson School of Management is AACSB-accredited and offers undergraduate business degrees with concentrations in accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, human resource management, management information systems, marketing, and operations management. That broad path gives McCulloch room to specialize after he gets to Albuquerque, while still building on the discipline and collaboration he developed in Los Alamos.

The graduation itself took place Saturday, May 23, at Sullivan Field, with gates opening at 8 a.m. and the ceremony beginning at 9 a.m. Tickets were not required. Los Alamos High School, about 35 miles from Santa Fe on the Pajarito Plateau in the Jemez Mountains, is accredited by Cognia, and Los Alamos Public Schools notes that its marching band has won state championships. For McCulloch, the final senior portrait was not just about leaving high school. It was about showing how a student from Los Alamos can turn arts participation into a foundation for the next stage of life.