Camp site media.

Hello?

What is the, what do you want me to say?

Oh, it's just a

Camelian.

Camelian Weekly.

So, fall of 2012, a new freshman shows up to Harrisburg High School named Asher Potts.

This is Daniel Riley, a feature writer and longtime editor for GQ Magazine.

And he's talking about Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state capital.

Nobody's seen him before, but that can be normal in high school where you're coming in from different middle schools and parts of the community. And he stuck out in a way that only made sense to me once I knew more

about the school. The school is like less than 5% white. So he was just sort of like a marginal

new white kid at the school, which always kind of made me laugh. And also, he didn't speak English like all the other white kids, but he told them that he was from the Russian Jewish community that lived by the river. The Susquehanna River, which cuts right through Harrisburg. It was just sort of like, okay, you're a new kid. I remember when, you know, strange new people showed up to my high school, and you just kind of shrugged your shoulders and got on with it.

So he started taking the classes that they signed him up for, pretty quiet and reserved at first.

I started succeeding kind of right away in the math and science classes, and then ultimately even in the language and literature classes, even though it was clear that English was not his first language.

So Asher Potts was a bit of an odd duck, maybe,

but this 14-year-old was smart, driven, and a force for good

at a school that was in need of positive stories.

According to U.S. News and World Report,

100% of the students are economically disadvantaged.

The school, which is one of the lowest ranked and most struggling schools in the state,

identified him as somebody to elevate and support right away.

And with the kind of winds at his back, he started wearing a suit and tie to school.

...