Five who admired the man, can define his legacy

Five people are scheduled to deliver eulogies during Strom Thurmond's funeral today:

Judge William W Wilkins Jr

In the spring of 1969, Billy Wilkins Jr. was working in the Greenville office of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr., chief judge of the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, when U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond walked in.

Wilkins didn't realize it at first, but Thurmond was looking for a young lawyer to come to work in Washington. After an hour of conversation, the senator offered him a job on the spot.

Their association lasted 34 years. Wilkins, now chief judge of the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, holds Thurmond in the highest regard -- personally and professionally.

"The most privileged part of my life has been to be a part of his," Wilkins, 61, said Monday. "Besides my mother and father, I was closest to him of anyone."

The brother of S.C. House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, Judge Wilkins is a native of Greenville, and a graduate of Davidson College and USC's School of Law.

After working as a legislative assistant to Thurmond for about a year, he served as campaign chairman for Thurmond's 1972 re-election bid.

Sen. John Courson

In the fall of 1964, USC sophomore John Courson was watching television in the Sigma Chi fraternity house on the University of South Carolina campus when Sen. Strom Thurmond announced he was switching to the Republican Party and endorsing Barry Goldwater, the GOP candidate for president.

At the time, South Carolina's Republican Party was almost nonexistent. Thurmond switched knowing he would face re-election two years later. Courson was astounded.

"That's what got me interested and totally involved and dedicated to his political career," the Richland County Republican said Monday. "It just hit me right between the eyes that this guy had tremendous intestinal fortitude, or, to say it in South Carolina terms, guts."

Courson, 58, born and reared in Augusta, Ga., worked intently for Thurmond, serving as state chairman for his re-election campaigns in 1984 and 1990.

"The respect evolved into a dedication and really a love for the man. It's just been almost a 40-year love affair."

Bettis C. Rainsford

Like many Edgefield residents, Bettis C. Rainsford, 51, doesn't remember the first time he met Sen. Thurmond -- and for the same reason.

"It was before I can remember, I suspect," he said Monday. "I've known the senator all my life."

Thurmond appointed Rainsford to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1969, but Rainsford enrolled in Harvard University instead. He later attended USC School of Law, graduating in 1976. But when he finished, he opted for a career in business instead of law.

Rainsford co-founded Delta Woodside Industries Inc. in 1983 with two partners. The company began operating in Edgefield, in a mill building where Senator Thurmond had worked in 1918. Delta Woodside eventually moved to Greenville. Through a series of leveraged buyouts, the company -- most commonly known for the Duckhead clothing line -- eventually made the Fortune 500.

Rainsford never left Edgefield. His association with Thurmond grew stronger through the years.

"I never had any long period of working for him, but I was a constant visitor in his office and was always working with him on things that would benefit Edgefield and South Carolina.

"He was one of my best friends and mentors. He was a man that you could absolutely count on."

U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.

A Democrat from Delaware, Biden, 60, was elected to the Senate in 1972, the year Thurmond turned 70. Biden is ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served with Thurmond.

A lawyer in Wilmington, Del., prior to his election, Biden grew up in New Castle County, Del., and graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and Syracuse University College of Law in 1968.

He worked most closely with Thurmond beginning in 1981, after a Republican takeover of the Senate, when Thurmond became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Biden its ranking minority member.

In a remembrance written for The State last year to commemorate Thurmond's 100th birthday, Biden recalled going with Thurmond to see President Reagan at the beginning of Reagan's second term to urge the president to sign a crime bill.

"At first, the president listened politely. Then Strom began to speak in his inimitable style."

Reagan moved to stand up, but Thurmond put his hand on his arm and pulled the president back into his seat. He said, "Mr. President, the one thing you got to know about Washington is that when you get as old as I am and you want to get things done, you have to compromise," Biden recalled.

Biden said Thurmond's gift for persuasion stemmed from the fact that "people always know where his heart is."

Sen. Kay Patterson

Patterson, 72, was one of the first blacks elected to the S.C. General Assembly after Reconstruction. An outspoken advocate of moving the Confederate flag from atop the State House dome -- long before it happened in 2000 -- Patterson endorsed Thurmond in several Senate campaigns after becoming convinced Thurmond had changed "his segregationist ways."

"He changed just like George Wallace of Alabama changed."

Patterson, a retired educator, graduated from Allen University in 1956 and from S.C. State College with a master's degree in 1971. He is a former Marine and a lifetime member of the NAACP.

Patterson said Thurmond's office helped him regularly with issues involving his constituents.

"Whenever my military men had problems, I went to Strom and he would solve the problem. When veterans had problems with benefits and things like that, he helped solve those problems."

He said his "political friendship" with Thurmond never went much beyond that because Thurmond was in Washington "and I was down here with the second string."

Patterson said he wasn't troubled by some of Thurmond's past racist rhetoric because he said all white politicians spoke that way at the time. He said he became convinced Thurmond changed.

"On my part, when a man changes and goes in the right direction and tries to help everybody, I look upon them for that. I don't go to the before the Damascus experience."