For German exchange student, Paul Glorius, Purcell High School might be the place where everybody knows your name.

He’s definitely a very prominent member of the student body, as evidenced when The Purcell Register sat down with him last week in the commons of the high school.

Shouts of “hi Paul!”, “hey Paul!” and “Paul, what’s up?!” were numerous when any group of students filed through the room.

As one group of girls called out to him he politely looked at me and said, “I don’t know who they all are.”

But everyone seems to know who he is and the sound of cheers in German have been heard from the stands at Purcell football games.

Something noticeable right off the bat is he is extremely polite and well-mannered.

His English is quite polished. That’s not surprising, considering he’s been taking English class since third grade in his native Assenheim, Germany.

Glorius said the rigors of school back in Germany are more difficult than in the U.S.

“You have to study a lot,” he said. “If you don’t study you don’t pass.”

Besides keeping up with his school work back in Assenheim, Glorius enjoyed hanging out with friends and playing multiple sports.

They also watched the Oklahoma City Thunder play on T.V.

He played basketball, football and American football back home – although his football is actually our soccer and our football is actually American football.

But high school football wasn’t an option back home.

“One of the main reasons I came here was to play football,” Glorius said.

He has experience playing American football and played receiver and defensive back just like he does for the Dragons this season.

He caught his first touchdown of the season against Lexington.

He’d like to attend college in the U.S. and play football.

“American football was popular in Germany in the 90s,” Glorius said. “Then it came back during Covid.”

He saw an NFL game in 2023 in Munich when the Seattle Seahawks played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Since he has been in Oklahoma, one of his favorite things has been going to Norman to watch the Sooners play football.

“I really like going to the OU games,” he said. “And I went fishing and it was really fun. It was much more active than I thought it would be.”

Aside, from playing football here, he enjoys the same things his fellow high schoolers enjoy.

They hang out and go to Norman.

His favorite food? A cheeseburger.

“I’ve always been into burgers,” he said. “My favorite is the smash burger from Sonic.”

His favorite food back home is schnitzel.

His parents are both police officers.

“That’s how they met,” he said.

Since Paul traveled to the U.S., his dad has switched to the night shift so father and son can communicate more easily around the seven-hour time difference.

“We text every day and usually FaceTime on the weekends.”

Despite being so far from home, Glorius has settled right in to life at Purcell.

“I would like to stay in Purcell (and spend my senior year here),” he said. “I love my host family. They’re awesome and really nice,” he said of Judge Gary and Marsha Barger.

Glorius has had fun teaching classmates to speak German.

“I’ve taught them a lot of German and it’s crazy how they remember all of it,” he said. “Some of them don’t even have accents!”

He was pleasantly surprised of how many activities there are to do in Central Oklahoma.

“I thought it was in the middle of nowhere but I started to see how much there is to do here,” he said.

It turns out Purcell is slightly larger by population than Assenheim.

“It’s been really great here,” Glorius said.