USMC 1st Lt. Billy Cooper was awarded his Naval Aviator Wings Friday in a ceremony at Naval Air Station Corpus Christie, Tex. Cooper is a 2011 graduate of Los Alamos High School.

He has also been selected for the rank of captain. He will next report to Marine Air Group 26 in New Bern, North Carolina for a further 26 weeks of training in the MV-022 Osprey aircraft after which he will report to forward base Marine Air Group 26 in Okinawa, Japan.

Cooper is the oldest son of Bill and Fran Cooper of Los Alamos. The Coopers’ other son, Gary who graduated from LAHS in 2013 is on national tour with the Disney show “Aladdin”.