A group of Smeal students spent the weekend visiting with the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett. He is the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate holding company that has averaged about a 20% return in the last three decades.

Think of it as a kind of pilgrimage for capitalists.

The group started by looking at the Nebraska Furniture Mart (owned by Berkshire), then went on to Kiewet Plaza (home of Berkshire’s headquarters) where they talked to the gentleman investor for about two hours, following it up with a lunch at Piccolo Pete’s (Buffett’s favorite restaurant). In a postmeal jaunt, the group went over to Borsheims (surprise… a Berkshire owned jewelry store).

The students got to play groupie to the guru. Penn State student Amisha Patel told MSNBC,

We were just in the car with Mr. Buffett, he was driving us. It was like a rock star moment for us.

Buffett has been one of the most vocal morale boosters for wary investors in this current economic downturn. This past October, the New York Times published an op-ed he wrote persuading the country to buy American stocks.

That op-ed reminded a few observers of our own Bill Schreyer’s Merrill Lynch ads from the economic low point in the early 1970s. In the ads, Schreyer proclaimed that “Merrill Lynch is still bullish on America.”

[Source: The Daily Collegian | Picture: Flickr’s trackrecord]