.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........

SOCORRO – The parents of a New Mexico Tech senior who died from self-inflicted injuries last week will attend the school’s commencement ceremony today to receive their son’s physics degree.

“The New Mexico Tech community is grieving the loss of … Bryce McKenzie, a senior in the Physics Department, (who) had finished his degree requirements for his bachelor’s in physics,” school officials said in a news release.

“Born July 5, 1988, he was 26 years old,” they said. “His parents will attend the commencement ceremony … to receive his degree.”

Tech officials reported that McKenzie, of Las Cruces, died of a “self-inflicted gunshot wound while under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms and having a ‘bad trip.’ ”

ADVERTISEMENTSkip

................................................................

“Family members said Bryce’s actions were not consistent with his character and personality, and that his judgment and reasoning must have been impaired by the illicit substance,” they said.

Funeral services were Friday at University Presbyterian Church in Las Cruces.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bryce’s family and friends for their tragic loss,” Tech President Dan Lopez said in a statement. “By all accounts, Bryce was an excellent student and his professors and fellow students all spoke highly of him. We, as a Tech community, feel a deep sense of loss over the sudden death of one of our own students. It is always difficult to lose a young person.

“It is even more difficult when it is one of our own tightly-knit Tech community,” Lopez said. “Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, his friends and to all who knew him.”

Professor Richard Sonnenfeld, also in a statement, said McKenzie was serious about his studies and enthusiastic about being a physicist. “Bryce was a serious student,” he said. “He really loved physics, and he liked to laugh. I got to know him better in the laboratory class. He frequently stated that he was at sea with the physics concepts, but his lab reports showed thorough and careful work.

“I saw Bryce at his most genuine in the final weeks of the course,” Sonnenfeld said. “He worked with some other students on free-choice projects such as studies of superconductivity and rehabilitating an old infrared camera.

“He got so involved in exploring these projects that he sometimes forgot to write down data. This was because, as he said, ‘The whole point of physics is to play with the apparatus.’ As someone who has spent 30 years as an experimental physicist, I would say that Bryce had it just about right. I spoke with him a day or so before he passed and he was jubilant to be graduating.”

Witnesses said McKenzie seemed fine while they were with him and there was no indication of intent of his actions until they heard a gunshot, according to law enforcement. He was rushed to Socorro General Hospital when paramedics arrived and was pronounced dead about 2:30 a.m. last Saturday.

McKenzie possessed multiple firearms, according to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case.