ETOWAH, Tenn. — McMinn Central High School student Joseph Riley is just 18, but he was given a unique position during the recent Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

“I was Tennessee’s one page,” Mr. Riley said. “It was better than being a delegate.”

As a page, Mr. Riley said he had three jobs.

“We handed out the signs, directed the people and the part I enjoyed the most: dragging out protesters,” he said.

He also had total clearance at the convention and was able to get into areas most delegates could not enter. Such access gave him the chance to meet and speak with such notables as strategist Karl Rove, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich and two former presidential candidates — Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

But work as a convention page is only one of many accomplishments for the senior, who is also a popular speaker, including a pro-life presentation he gives at area churches.

He is also the national president of the Future Business Leaders of America, governor of Tennessee’s American Legion Boys State, president of Boys Nation and Tennessee’s 4-H governor. He also addressed the Hearst Foundation’s U.S. Senate Youth Program in Washington, D.C.

For three years, Mr. Riley was a star basketball player at Central High School, but he gave that up for his other work.

Central High guidance counselor Donna Casteel said Mr. Riley is unusual among most students because “he knows what he wants to do and how to accomplish his goals.”

“I’ve told him, ‘When you are president, don’t forget about us,’” Ms. Casteel said.

Faye Green, Mr. Riley’s FBLA sponsor and a computer and accounting teacher at Central High, said some factors in his success are that he is driven, goal-oriented and willing to make sacrifices.

Mr. Riley said his primary goal is to build friendships and relationships.

“I think people see themselves in me — and also find my accent interesting,” he said. “I just try to be myself.”

His father is chief of staff at Woods Memorial Hospital in Etowah, but Mr. Riley said he plans to pay for his own college through scholarships and then through military service, possibly the Marines or Air Force.

He wants to go to law school, he said, and hopes the military will pay the tuition. In turn, he said, he will serve four years in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, also known as JAG, the judicial arm of the services.

After a stint in the service, he plans to come back to McMinn County to work as a lawyer.

“But I have a feeling I will be involved in politics,” he said.

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