And it's a word that will echo loudly through that economically depressed corner of the state this morning when Gov. Mark Sanford and officials from a Dallas-based company announce construction of a new industrial plant that may create 100 jobs in Georgetown County, where 3,200 or so job-seekers aren't on any payroll.

American Gypsum LLC, a unit of Eagle Materials Inc., said it will build a $125 million facility in Georgetown that will make wallboard using steam and gypsum provided by Santee Cooper, a Moncks Corner-based utility. The company said it will break ground on the plant at the end of this year and finish it by mid-2007.

Eagle Materials said the facility will employ about 100 workers, 80 of whom will earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year, while some 20 salaried employees will make from $80,000 to $85,000. There will be an estimated 200 additional jobs, such as truck driving and maintenance, indirectly linked to the plant's operations.

Guerry Green, owner of a Georgetown manufacturing company and chairman of the Santee Cooper board, said the new plant is the county's biggest economic-development announcement since the 1960s, when the area's steel mill was built.

"There's a big buzz building," Green said. "I can't go anywhere without people asking what the announcement is."

Georgetown has been a particularly dark smudge on the state's dismal labor picture. Its unemployment rate -- currently 11.9 percent -- has lagged the state average for years and was sixth-highest in the state in February.

Incomes in the county also are below par. The average Georgetown worker made $26,852 in 2003, 13 percent less than the state average and 29 percent below the national average, according to federal figures.

About 3,200 people are looking for work in Georgetown, while the state employment office in the county has about 110 job listings in its database.

"This is huge for Georgetown," said Al Burns, the county's director of economic development. "In terms of jobs, capital investment and the impact on the environment, this is a win-win project."

The county and the state are providing about $7.5 million in tax credits to the industrial firm over the next 20 years.

For Eagle Materials, the factory is a chance to capitalize further on a booming construction industry. The company holds about 8 percent of the country's wallboard market. The new plant -- which will be Eagle Material's fifth such facility -- will boost its wallboard production by 28 percent and save a lot of dollars that the Texas company now spends shipping its product to the Southeast.

"This is a big step for American Gypsum," said Craig Kesler, Eagle Materials' vice president of investor relations. "We will now be able to reach coast-to-coast with our distribution line, so it really makes us a bigger player."

Mostly because of a surge in residential construction, Eagle Materials recorded a 16 percent increase in profit last year and a 45 percent jump in 2003. The company, which also makes cement and paperboard, expects home building to slow somewhat but predicts a resurgence in commercial construction and big public projects.

Another major draw for Eagle Materials was raw materials, specifically steam and gypsum, which is dug from a mine or leached from the emissions of coal-burning power plants equipped with pollution-controlling scrubbers. Santee Cooper plants discharge steam and currently produce about 300,000 tons of gypsum a year.

The utility had planned on putting additional scrubbers on its Winyah power plant in Georgetown County by 2012 to comply with a federal environmental settlement. Santee Cooper agreed to install the pollution controls over the coming two years to provide gypsum for Eagle Materials.

"We knew other utilities are going to have more of the scrubbers in the future, so we just said 'Let's get started a little earlier and get a wallboard plant set so it's here forever,' " said Bill McCall, the Santee Cooper executive who brokered the deal with Eagle Materials.

Santee Cooper officials said a number of wallboard makers inquired about buying the utility's gypsum when it announced plans about a year ago to install the new scrubbers. Eagle Materials was a good fit, according to Green, because it was looking to build a production plant in South Carolina rather than cart the gypsum out of state. In recent months, the Texas company was choosing between the Georgetown site and a plot of land near another Santee Cooper power plant in Cross.

"It came down to Santee Cooper and we just let the customer drive the bus," Green said. "What we focused on was making sure it came to South Carolina."

The plant will be built close to the Winyah power plant on about 60 acres of Santee Cooper property. The utility is offering a long-term lease on the land that will grant the first four years of access free of charge. Santee Cooper also agreed to spend an estimated $600,000 to reroute a road and some transmission lines on the Georgetown site to accommodate the new operation.