For John Around Him, the idea of attending Dartmouth College was more than impossible. When Wick Sloane, his writing teacher at Bunker Hill Community College suggested he apply to the Ivy League school, Around Him thought he was making an outlandish joke.
“It only took us 10 months to convince him he should apply to Dartmouth,” says Sloane, an adjunct English professor and coordinator of publications at Bunker Hill, an urban and racially diverse community college in Boston.
Around Him is beginning his sophomore year this fall at Dartmouth. His road to the school was an extraordinary journey that took him from the Pine Ridge Reservation to Iraq to community college to Capitol Hill.
Around Him, 26, is a member of the Lakota tribe. He was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Kyle, S.D. where he graduated from Little Wound High School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs school on the reservation.
The idea of attending college was never discussed at Little Wound, recalls Around Him recalls.
“No one ever pulled me aside and asked if I wanted to go to college,” he says.
The only route to college seemed to be through the military so he enlisted in the Army, and he was scheduled to leave on Sept. 11, 2001. Having never traveled far from Pine Ridge, Around Him was anxious about leaving the reservation. He had packed his bags the night before and said goodbye to friends and family.
