Thurmond was a legend

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marked Thurmond's historic tenure

in a Senate office that began with

an unprecedented write-in campaign.

Strom Thurmond, dead at 100, became a South Carolina legend during his own lifetime. The enfeeblement of his waning years obscured more than half a century of public service that endeared him to voters as did no officeholder before him.

Thurmond, the oldest and longest-serving senator in American history, died shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday at an Edgefield County hospital. He moved into the hospital in January after retiring from his 48-year career in the U.S. Senate.

Untold numbers of South Carolinians were born, grew up, married and had children and grandchildren with Strom Thurmond a political constant in their lives. They returned him to office time and again for the representation he gave to their values of plainness, pride of place and native individualism.

His early prominence was unremarkable for the hard scrabble politics that produced it. He was a populist and a New Deal Democrat in a Southern state inspired and limited by its past. He gave voice to both a popular sense of rightness and the accepted view of fairness. He was a segregationist in a day when every South Carolina office seeker either publicly proclaimed it or quietly acquiesced to it.

As county official, state legislator, circuit judge, governor and U.S. senator, he was nonetheless a leader who raised public aspirations for better schooling, better public health, more roads and more industry.

On his way to the governorship, he volunteered for World War II in the best tradition of South Carolina, stepping down as a trial judge and becoming an airborne officer. He led glider troops behind enemy lines, was wounded in action and fought across parts of six countries, emerging with five battle stars and 18 decorations.

He bested 10 candidates to become a vigorous governor who took on the then-dominant Barnwell Ring that ran state affairs, and he compiled a largely progressive record that included lengthening the school year, modernizing the Port of Charleston, legalizing divorce, and extending welfare to dependent children. He gained national prominence and state adoration for leading the Dixiecrat revolt from the Democratic Party in the 1948 presidential election.

And in 1954 he plumbed and trumpeted the deepest layers of South Carolina's popular will in an extraordinary write-in campaign that toppled a manipulated appointment to the U.S. Senate, launching his own 48 years in Washington.

His constituent service over the decades became legendary, responding to requests for help on matters ranging from personal Social Security problems to industry difficulties with federal regulations. Less noted were the Washington internships and stints of staff employment he created to launch numerous political and public service careers of able young South Carolinians. His racial views mellowed and changed with the times. He easily won his record-breaking final term in 1996.

He showed little inclination for the national lawmaker roles achieved by such Southern contemporaries as Georgia's Richard Russell, Virginia's Harry Byrd and Arkansas' William Fulbright. By the time he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee presiding over the nationally televised confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, the burden of years had made him hardly a figurehead in a drama led by others.

Even so, he was no less appreciated in his declining years by a majority of South Carolinians for the faithful representation he gave to their views and the scandal-free service he gave to their state.

Thurmond's legacy is one of longevity, and his political career reflected the dramatic change in the political and social life of his home state. Thurmond both changed with the times and helped change the times. He hired black staff members, dedicated himself to helping black constituents and moved the South past the harsh racial rhetoric of an earlier era in which he so eagerly played a leadership role.

Many South Carolinians used the occasion of Thurmond's retirement from the Senate and his homecoming to South Carolina as a time to express the deep fondness held for him. His death will be another time for reflection, for heartfelt sadness and for much appreciation for a man who has meant so much to this state.