bennett

Henry Garland Bennett
1886-1951

Henry G. Bennett, a past president of Southeastern, was born in a log cabin on December 14, 1886, in Nevada County, Arkansas. He was the son of a rural minister, Thomas Jefferson Bennett and Mary Elizabeth Bennett .Henry lived on the family farm in Arkansas until moving to Texas when he was less than a year old. The family returned to Arkadelphia, Arkansas when it was time for the children to begin school. Henry enrolled in the Primary Department of Ouachita College when he was eight years old, and stayed there until he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1907. While in college Henry did very well academically, and found time to serve as President of the Philomathian Literary Society, vice president of the student athletic association, and business manager of the campus newspaper.

In college Henry worked at various jobs to pay for his tuition. He obtained a teaching certificate and taught briefly at a business college after graduation from Ouachita. He quit teaching to sell textbooks. One of his trips led him to Boswell, Oklahoma where he found out that Boswell needed a teacher. He applied for the position and was hired, and he soon became the principal of the school.

In 1908 he became the school superintendent at Boswell and the Choctaw County school superintendent in 1909 and the Hugo city school superintendent from 1910 to 1919. He became the president of Southeastern Teacher's College in 1919. As college president, Bennett continued his education to receive his master's degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1924 and a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1928.

Henry G. Bennett published several books during his lifetime. His doctoral dissertation was called Coordination of State Institutions for Higher Education in Oklahoma. He also published anthologies for high schools called Trail Breaking, On the High Road, American Literature, and English Literature

Bennett assumed control of Southeastern at the start of the summer term. His leadership style was like a benevolent dictator. He concentrated power in the hands of a few trusted people. He was a devout Christian who encouraged students to participate in religious activities on campus. He was a firm believer in the good relations between the school and the city of Durant, and worked for close cooperation between "town and gown." He worked to build the school. He once said: "Great institutions do not result from haphazard development; they are the fruition of years of planned growth under the guidance of wise policy." The result of this philosophy is indicated by the growth of the school during his tenure. While he was president of Southeastern three new buildings were completed. The first was the gymnasium/auditorium, the second was the science building, and the third was the library. Construction on the library building began in 1927 and completed in 1928 at a cost of $114,000. Enrollment went from 300 students to 1500 during his time as President.

He left Southeastern in June of 1928 to take the presidency of Oklahoma A & M College (now Oklahoma State University) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, which was still a little known institution with an enrollment of 3,800. Under his leadership, the school became one of the great educational institutions of the Southwest, with enrollment of 12,000 students per semester by 1949. During his presidency, he began a building program at Oklahoma A & M College, which was called the twenty-five year plan. By the end of the 1930's, Henry had already spent seven million dollars constructing an animal husbandry and experiment barns, two large residence halls, an engineering building, a field house, and other structures. He began a Fire Training School in 1939, and also perfected the organization of the Oklahoma State University's graduate school. During World War II, Oklahoma A & M trained more than 40,000 men and women for national defense duty, operating a school for WAVES, offering instruction in radar and oriental languages. Even before the war was over, Henry Bennett was planning for the post war accommodation of students by having a 1,293-unit village for veterans. He opened a branch college at Okmulgee in 1946. After the war, the building program was resumed, and a new dairy center, men's and women's residence halls, a student union building, and new power and water plants were built by the end of 1949. He also established the Veterinary Medicine Division in 1948. He had new veterinary medicine and home economics buildings built also.

While Oklahoma A& M was growing after the war, H. G. Bennett was being pulled away from his college duties. In 1945, he was a delegate from the United States to the Quebec International Foods and Agricultural Organization, which was charting food rehabilitation for Europe. In 1949, he was selected to serve a cultural survey mission for the Army in U.S. occupied Germany. In 1950, he was named on a special mission to Abyssinia as counselor for Ethiopian leaders of agriculture for education.

In January, 1949, President Harry S. Truman outlined a program for peace and freedom, the fourth point of which was "to embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of the underdeveloped areas." This idea of Truman's was incorporated into what became known as the four point program. This four point program was to chart a course to relieve hunger in war-stricken areas of the world. The other three points of the four point program were: support for the U.N., extension of the ERP, and the strengthening of "freedom-loving nations against the dangers of aggression." President Truman nominated Bennett as the permanent Four-Point Director on November 14, 1950. He was granted an indefinite leave of absence from his academic duties, and he was sworn into office on Dec 1, 1950. The Four-Point Program had an appropriation of 34 million dollars for the first year. The four-point program was to supply American "know-how" to bring technical skills to people in underdeveloped nations through on-the-job training, demonstration of methods, laboratories and libraries, exchange of teachers and students, and international conferences. Of major importance was the increase in food production. Bennett sent technical experts to more than thirty nations to teach the people "how to get more per acre through better planting, better seeds, or better livestock strains."

He went to Iran in late 1951 as director of the Four-Point Program. While there, he perished in a plane crash on December 22, 1951.

Henry G. Bennett married Miss Vera Connell at Durant on January 29, 1913. They had five children: Henry G. Bennett Jr, Phil Connell Bennett, Liberty Loven Bennett, Mary Lola Bennett, and Thomas Edwin Bennett

The Library was named after Henry G. Bennett during homecoming ceremonies on October 23, 1982.

Sources used:

"Bennett, Point 4 Chief, Wife and three Aides Die in Iranian Plane Crash" Washington Post, December 24, 1951
"65 Productive Years Is President's History" The Daily O'Collegian, January 10,1952
Sullivant, Otis. H. G. Bennett: Potent Educator-Politician." The Daily Oklahoman, July 7, 1968.
Rulon, Philip Reed. Oklahoma State University Since 1890. Stillwater, OK: Oklahoma State University Press, 1975
Norris, L. David. Southeastern Oklahoma State University Since 1909. Mesa Pub. Co., 1986
"Henry G. Bennett" Current Biography: Who's News and Why: 1951. H.W. Wilson Company, 1952

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