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Sanford to address
graduates at SCSU By The T&D Staff
S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford will
deliver the May 2003 commencement address at South
Carolina State University.
More than 500 graduates
will participate in this year's ceremonies at 9
a.m. Saturday, May 10, in the Oliver C. Dawson
Bulldog Stadium.
SCSU also will be
celebrating its annual May Weekend from Friday to
Sunday, May 9-11. Special reunion activities are
planned for the classes of 1933, 1938, 1943, 1948,
1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973 and 1978.
Sanford's speech will be
his first at the Orangeburg campus but not his
first news-making connection with the
university.
He was sworn in as the
115th governor on Jan. 15. Shortly afterward, the
first-term Republican issued a formal apology on
the 35th anniversary of the events known as the
"Orangeburg Massacre.'' It was on Feb. 8, 1968,
that state troopers shot and killed three students
and wounded others in the wake of a protest
focused on desegregating a bowling
alley.
"I think it's appropriate
to tell the African-American community in South
Carolina that we don't just regret what happened
in Orangeburg 35 years ago -- we apologize for
it," Sanford said in a statement issued Feb.
8.
Sanford's apology caught
civil rights leaders off-guard, with some saying
it was a significant step beyond the words of
former Gov. Jim Hodges, who two years ago attended
the annual memorial service and said the people of
the state "deeply regret" the incident.
Sanford spokesman Will
Folks said Wednesday he does not know yet about
the governor's topic for the May 10
address.
Prior to being elected as
governor in November 2002, Sanford lived on the
coast of South Carolina with his wife, Jenny, and
their four young sons, Marshall, Landon, Bolton
and Blake.
Sanford served in the U.S.
Congress for six years before voluntarily stepping
down to honor a personal commitment to limit his
time in Washington. As a businessman, he had had
no prior political experience.
In Washington, Sanford was
an advocate for the taxpayer. For his consistent
efforts to limit government's growth, he was
ranked number one in the entire U.S. Congress in
1995, 1997 and 1999 by Citizens Against Government
Waste.
The National Taxpayers'
Union rated him similarly, in the top three in
Congress.
In Congress, Sanford served
on the Government Reform Committee, the
International Relations Committee, the Joint
Economic Committee and the Science Committee. Each
year he returned more than $250,000 from his
office budget to the U.S. Treasury.
Sanford grew up with two
brothers and a sister on a family farm near
Beaufort. He graduated from high school there and
then attended Furman University, where he received
a bachelor's degree in business.
He later received an MBA
from the University of Virginia's Darden School of
Business and went on to work in real estate
finance and investment in New York City and
Charleston.
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