Even more than Strom Thurmond, Reagan changed the face of Palmetto State politics, doing it in quick succession in two elections, from 1980 to 1984.

The trigger was a sunny March day in 1980 when Reagan left North Charleston on a bus tour ahead of the state's first-ever Republican presidential primary.

The nation was in a state of malaise caused by high interest rates, the Iran hostage crisis and an ineffectual Southern Democrat in the White House, Jimmy Carter. Voters were looking for a change.

Reagan found his voice in the Palmetto State, telling South Carolinians that hope was around the corner if government would get out of the way.

"It's not necessary to make the Legislature see the light," he told a crowd in Greenwood, "just to feel the heat."

His message resonated. No one in the state had seen anyone speak with such a combination of wit and strength "I don't think we're weak anywhere," said Reagan's state campaign chairman, Carroll A. Campbell Jr., a future governor.

Along the way, Reagan created and cultivated the two key prongs of the modern Republican Party in the South: the "Reagan Democrats," conservative white voters fed up with the liberal swing in Washington; and the religious right movement, voters who previously stayed away from the polls, choosing not to mix religion and politics. Reagan invited them in, saying the Republican Party needed to be a "Big Tent." Reagan won the 1980 S.C. primary in a landslide, getting 53 percent of the vote against Texan John Connelly and future Vice President George Bush.

Additionally, he set a 20-year precedent in which no Republican would win the White House without winning the S.C. primary.

But there was more than politics that Reagan gave South Carolina. As president, his buildup of the national defense budget meant billions for the state's economy.

During the "Reagan Doctrine" decade of the 1980s, he stressed the salaries that paid engineers at the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons plant, while his push to expand the military sent thousand of sailors to places such as the Charleston Naval Base.

He was also prophetic. In a 1993 visit, Reagan told graduating Citadel cadets they would be the vanguard against a terror strike against the United States.

He practically foreshadowed the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York. "A multitude of terrorists and hoodlums are working night and day to do us harm," Reagan told the graduates. He went on to stress the danger of America becoming complacent.

"U.S. troops have been called into action over a dozen times in the last four years, and dozens of deadly conflicts still plague the globe," Reagan said. "Yet our nation is calling the watchman down from the tower. There are some who want to send Paul Revere into retirement. And I fear it is much too early for that."

Although Reagan left office in 1988 and announced his battle with Alzheimer's in 1994, he never lost the love of South Carolinians, according to those who knew him.

"I think South Carolina can relate to him as a friend," said former Gov. Jim Edwards of Mount Pleasant, who served as secretary of Energy under Reagan and worked on Reagan's presidential campaigns. "He captured the hearts of South Carolinians. I think if he ran today and were in sound body and mind, he would win South Carolina."

South Carolina, which was coming full circle as a firm Republican state when Reagan ran for president in 1980, found a kindred spirit in the former California governor, Edwards said. "The people of South Carolina trusted him, as did the people of America," Edwards said.

Even Democrats were respectful.

"I think if any (South Carolinians) knew him personally, they would have liked him very much," Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said. "We lost a genuine American hero."

Reagan gave South Carolinians the courage to stand up for conservative beliefs, according to Charles-ton attorney Nancy Hawk, a longtime local Republican figure. "He really showed what it meant to stand up for our country," Hawk said.

Reagan's wit and sense of humor are memorable. Edwards recalled a Cabinet meeting with Reagan to discuss environmental policy. At one point during the meeting, Edwards said to Reagan, "Mr. President, it seems we're more concerned with the health of bears than the health of our own people."

Reagan replied, "Jim, obviously you've never smelled a bear."

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