Emperor's visit to school planted seeds of an alliance with African country

But this king was no rock star — he was monarch of Ethiopia, a country that had begun to forge a decades-long alliance with OSU.

Haile Selassie's trip to OSU — then called Oklahoma A&M College — marked the first time a foreign head of state had visited Oklahoma. The 61-year-old emperor of Ethiopia was an international celebrity known for his eloquent speech to the League of Nations in 1936 when Italy invaded his nation, and for sending Ethiopian troops to join United Nations forces in the Korean War.

He also was royalty and was treated as such in Stillwater. Arriving on a special Trans World Airline prop plane called the "Star of Bombay,” Selassie and his entourage were given the finest rooms at the Student Union hotel, where his 24-year-old son had his own jukebox and soon developed an affinity for hot dogs and ice cream sundaes.

Selassie, a small man wearing a field marshal's tan dress uniform and carrying a large leather swagger stick, was the epitome of dignity, said OSU political science professor Theodore Vestal, who has written papers and a book about Ethiopia.

Selassie had asked to see "an Indian” on his trip to Oklahoma, so Acee Blue Eagle, a well-known American Indian artist from Okmulgee, appeared in full headdress and buckskin clothing, ceremonially granting Selassie the name "Great Buffalo High Chief.”

Thousands gathered for the chance to meet the emperor, Vestal said, wowed by royalty and intrigued with Africa.

But beyond the pomp and circumstance of the visit, a major partnership was cemented between OSU and the east African country.

The union began with OSU President Henry G. Bennett, who visited Ethiopia in 1950 and urged President Harry S. Truman to support education aid to developing countries.

Under Truman's Point Four program, OSU was awarded a contract to develop an agricultural college in Ethiopia modeled after the American land-grant system.

Bennett and his wife died in an airplane crash just months after the contract was signed, but the OSU partnership with Ethiopia continued for 16 years and led to the opening of the Imperial Ethiopian College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, which thrives today.

During the partnership, 185 faculty and staff from the United States worked in Ethiopia and 57 Ethiopian students earned graduate degrees at OSU.

"I think that OSU and the Point Four program planted seeds that grew into a big tree bearing lots of fruit and shade to improve the well-being of the people and the future of the country,” said Don Wagner, an OSU animal science professor who taught in Ethiopia during the last years of the agreement.

He said Selassie was a "genuine” man who wanted to do all he could to help his people.

But Ethiopia was not immune from the political chaos that plagued African countries.

Several years after the OSU partnership ended, he was overthrown and reportedly executed by a military junta, the Derg, which formed a socialist state marked by bloody coups, wide-scale drought and massive refugee problems.

The Derg reign ended in 1991, and OSU returned to Ethiopia to lead a forestry project funded by the World Bank.

Vestal said OSU has the longest relationship between an American university and a sub-Saharan African nation.

Last year, 13 students from Ethiopia were enrolled at OSU.