COLUMBIA--When Strom Thurmond is laid to rest today, it will mark the culmination of three months of planning for one of the biggest, most meticulously detailed and carefully orchestrated funerals that South Carolina has ever seen.

Because it is not every day you bury a legend.

Under a rainy and dreary sky here Monday, dozens of folks quietly went about the preparations. State employees mowed the grass on the Statehouse grounds while workers scrubbed the sidewalks and steps around First Baptist Church a few blocks away.

WADE SPEES/STAFF Soldiers from the Joint Services Honor Guard from Washington, D.C., rehearse Monday at the First Baptist Church in Columbia for former Sen. Strom Thurmond's funeral. They first practiced without carrying anything and then with an empty casket they brought on the bus with them.

An honor guard from Washington, D.C., rehearsed the carefully choreographed procedure for carrying the former senator's casket into and out of the church.

Thurmond died Thursday at the age of 100 in his hometown of Edgefield.

Robert Shellhouse, whose Aiken funeral home is handling the arrangements, said the planning and coordination has been a mammoth undertaking, the largest event he has ever arranged.

Shellhouse has had to coordinate with the military, State Law Enforcement Division and the Washington honor guard, not to mention the family. He spent a day at the Statehouse preparing for Thurmond's three days of lying in state, which ends at 11 a.m. today.

Throw in the Secret Service, which will accompany Vice President Dick Cheney to the funeral, and suddenly you have a gaggle of government agencies.

Then there were the incidentals, such as coordinating the procession through Edgefield with local police and making sure the trees were trimmed at Willowbrook Cemetery.

"It all took time," Shellhouse said. "We had to make sure the horses (pulling the caisson) could make the turn into the gate at the cemetery."

This morning, the public can view Thurmond's casket from 9 to 11 as the former senator continues to lie in state in the second-floor lobby of the Statehouse. At 11, a Joint Services Honor Guard, the National Guard and state employees will take the casket out of the Statehouse and load it onto a horse-drawn caisson for a procession to First Baptist Church, several blocks away in downtown Columbia for the 1 p.m. funeral.

First Baptist, which dates back nearly 200 years, occupies an entire city block at Hampton and Sumter streets. Shellhouse said no one has a good estimate of how many people might show up, but the church can accommodate 4,200, 900 of which will watch television monitors in the church annex.

The ceremony is expected to last up to 90 minutes, said state Sen. John Courson, a close friend of Thurmond and his former state campaign chairman. Then a motorcade will take Thurmond to Edgefield, about 45 miles away.

Courson will be one of five people delivering eulogies. The others will come from family friend Bettis Rainsford, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., chief federal appeals Judge William "Billy" Wilkins of South Carolina, and state Sen. Kay Patterson, D-Columbia.

In the town square at Edgefield, where one of several monuments to Thurmond stands, the casket will be loaded onto another caisson for the march to Willowbrook Cemetery. Thurmond, a veteran of World War II, including the D-Day invasion of Normandy, will be buried with full military honors.

President Bush ordered all U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and other government buildings for Thurmond's funeral. It applies, until sunset, to all public buildings and grounds, as well as military posts, naval stations, naval vessels, U.S. embassies, legations, consular offices and other facilities abroad, the White House said.

WADE SPEES/STAFF Beverly Sessoms (center) pauses Monday with her father, Sumter Moore, and son, Sumter Sessoms, (far right) at the monument to Sen. Strom Thurmond on the Statehouse grounds in Columbia.

Bush ordered the salute "as a mark of respect for the memory of James Strom Thurmond, the longest serving member and former president pro tempore of the United States Senate," he said Monday in a statement.

After more than 1,000 people visited the Statehouse on Sunday to view the casket and greet the Thurmond family, a steady stream of visitors filed through the lobby Monday, although there was no waiting.

Ann Marie Rossi of Columbia was at the Statehouse as the doors opened at 9 a.m. Monday. In 1984, Thurmond and his wife, Nancy, had shown up at Rossi's house shortly after her daughter Bobbi was murdered. The couple just dropped by to offer their sympathy, a gesture she never forgot.

"He was just so cordial to the family," she said. "I'm happy to have the chance to pay my respects."

LOU KRASKY/AP Workers prepare Monday for today's funeral for former Sen. Strom Thurmond at the First Baptist Church in Columbia.

Beverly Moore stood outside the Statehouse at Thurmond's statue as workers mowed the grass near where his casket will be placed on the caisson today. Moore's family knew Thurmond for years and her daughter interned in the senator's Washington office. She gazed wistfully at the statue of a man who towered over a century of South Carolina politics.

"There has been a mantra in South Carolina: When you have a problem, you call Strom," Moore said. "He's going to be missed. They don't make 'em like that anymore."

TV COVERAGE

WCSC, Channel 5: Live coverage in Columbia and Edgefield begins at noon and lasts 2-3 hours.

WCBD, Channel 2: Live coverage in Columbia and Edgefield begins at noon and lasts 2-3 hours.

WCIV, Channel 4: Coverage from Columbia begins at 6 p.m.

MSNBC: Live funeral coverage.

CNN: Coverage with updates during the day.

FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Did not return phone calls from The Post and Courier on Monday and its schedule does not mention Thurmond funeral coverage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.