Habt-Sellassie Taffassa ’54 featured in Africa Travel Magazine
Taffassa studied government and international relations at Carleton.
Habt-Sellassie Taffassa ’54 — also spelled Habte Selassie Tafesse — was featured in Africa Travel Magazine as “the man who invented tourism in Ethiopia.”
Listed as Sellassie Taffassa in most campus publications in the Carleton Archives, Sellassie was the name most of his classmates seemed to know him by. His death in August of 2017 was noted in the Winter 2018 edition of the Carleton Voice, on page 40.
When Emperor Haile Selassie visited Carleton in June 1954, right around the time of Taffassa’s graduation, Taffassa posed with him for a picture in Great Hall, which ran in the St. Paul newspaper on June 10, 1954. Taffassa is also mentioned in Carleton Remembered 1909–1986, in the remembrance by William C. Edwards ’86:
Another memorable incident which occurred in my freshman year was an international affair of the heart. Juan Navarro from Mexico, who was my neighbor on ground Davis, discovered that I knew some Spanish and could sing. Juan proceeded to enlist my assistance, plus the aid of one Habt-Selassie Tafassa, an Ethiopian from the Class of ’54, to help Juan serenade his ‘chacha,’ as referred to one of the co-eds. Juan taught Sellassie and me the words to two songs, ‘Muchacha Linda’ and ‘Alla en el Rancho Grande.’ For several nights, the three of us ‘thrilled’ the girls of Gridley with these melodious strains accompanied by Juan and Sellassie on guitars.