Destination: Skagit Valley

Legson Kayira is a Tumbuka tribesman from Nyasaland who is in love--with Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, Wash. The junior college, which has 650 students, mainly local, first learned of Kayira's devotion last February when he sent a scholarship application from Kampala, Uganda. The school heard from him again this fall, when he sent a letter that began: "In October of the year of our Lord 1958, I began a journey--a long and difficult journey--a journey to glory or death." The letter went on to paint a picture of a youngster so hungry for a U.S. education that he had walked 2,500 miles across Africa to find one. This week Kayira and Skagit will see each other at last.

Legson Kayira was born in Karonga, Nyasaland (pop. 200) anywhere from 18 to 22 years ago ("Mother says only, 'You were born when people were harvesting' "). After eleven years of schooling, he formed an ambition: "We have 3,000,000 people in Nyasaland and only 22 university graduates. Nobody has ever earned a degree from an American college. I want to be the first."

Bricks & Physics. Hearing of "people in Uganda who went to school in America," Legson hiked off in 1958 to learn their secret. He walked straight north across Tanganyika. Kayira had only the clothes on his back, but he survived: "Whenever I saw a house being built, I asked to carry bricks." He earned two-fifths of a cent for every 80 bricks, enough to buy bananas and to get him eventually to Mwanza on Lake Victoria in July 1959. There he worked for six months to raise money for a boat trip to Kampala. He spent $1.05 for a physics book (which he memorized), and haunted the U.S. Information Service library. One day he stumbled on Skagit Valley in a directory of U.S. colleges. "I wrote a letter and got one back saying I had a scholarship."

Kayira set off again, walking 50 miles a day, sometimes hitchhiking, and eventually boarding a White Nile steamer. "I had no food, but by the mercy of God on the boat was an American tourist." This Samaritan fed Kayira until he reached Khartoum, where he marched proudly into the U.S. embassy for a visa.

Cash & Good Will. Consul Emmett M. Coxson was so impressed by Kayira's "journey of unbelievable hardship" that he quickly wrote Skagit for aid. While the boy spent hours in the U.S.I.S. library boning up on algebra, Skagit's students raised more than $1,100 to guarantee clothing and round-trip fare. Schoolteacher William Atwood, father of seven, offered a free home at the Atwoods' roomy farmhouse in nearby Bayview. Mrs. Atwood quashed the only unpleasantness in the entire affair. Huffed one neighbor: "What if he wants to take your daughter to a dance?" Replied Mrs. Atwood: "That will be fine. My girls love to dance."

Skagit is determined to see him through academically, steer him on to a university. Says Dean George Hodson: "This boy is going to have a good experience in every way. We're going to send back to Africa an emissary of good will for America." Legson knows precisely what he wants: "When I go back to Nyasaland, I will be a teacher. Then I enter politics. When I get defeated, I go back to teaching. You can always trust education."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.