It's great to be here today at Dent Middle School and at schools across the state via satellite. We have the South Carolina Educational Television Network to thank for that.

Today South Carolina is on the path to progress...with a plan to bring a world of information to every school in this state.

Today I'm announcing the first big step in fulfilling that plan: a wiring project to set up the infrastructure that will connect every school to the South Carolina Information Network...what we call SCINET.

Let me first give you a little background on SCINET.

Back in 1990, we learned some tough lessons from Hurricane Hugo. And to follow up, Governor Campbell formed a team of government and private businesses for an Emergency Communications Network.

Not long ago, I called many of those same partners together to respond to a very different emergency...an emergency in education technology. This time we asked them to start drawing up plans on how to connect public schools to our existing SCINET.

The partnership is made up of the State Budget and Control Board, the South Carolina Department of Education, the state's technical colleges, ETV, BellSouth, and the LightStar Project, an association of all 26 South Carolina local exchange telephone companies.

Some of those folks are here with me today:

Joe Anderson of BellSouth;

Ted Lightle of the Budget and Control Board's Office of Information Resources;

Pam Pritchett of the State Department of Education; and

Stan Bugner of the Columbia LightStar Partnership.

They've given us the plan. The General Assembly has given us the dollars to bring the World Wide Web to the front door. But many of our schools don't have wiring to carry information into the classroom.

That's why we're here. Together, you and I are going to wire more than 1,200 public schools in South Carolina. And I'll be kicking off our first SCINET Day on October 19th...going into a school and pulling some wires and cables myself.

That ought to be proof enough that you don't have to be an electrician to get involved!

In fact, each school should only need about a dozen volunteers to work a couple of hours to get the job done.

We have a sample wiring kit right here.

The whole package costs about $300 to $500, and it's enough to wire 5 classrooms and a media center.

With this kit, we'll run cable to a patch panel and out the other side to a plug in the classroom. From there, it's just a matter of plugging up a computer and getting to work.

Now here's how SCINET Days will come together.

First, schools in your community will survey where they need wires and how much they'll need.

Then you can start planning a SCINET Day in your community, getting parents, teachers, students and businesses involved as volunteers at the local level.

Some of our finest corporate citizens...like Duke Power, Pepsi, ComputerLand, BellSouth and PMSC...are also standing by with resources to provide kits or offer expert advice.

We also have a toll free number you can call to get your questions answered...like where to buy the kits, how to raise money for them, or where to find technical support.

If you already have access to the Internet, let me show you what our SCINET home page looks like. You'll see the address on your screen in just a moment.

Businesses can find out which schools need help in buying kits...or even computers. There's even a link called "How Businesses Can Get Involved." It doesn't get any easier.

There's a lot to do to get ready, but I want to make one point very clear. October 19th is just our first SCINET Day. We'll have as many SCINET Days as we have schools, if that's what it take to get every school in the state wired.

The great thing about this project is that it's totally community-driven. All of the work and all of the fund-raising is done by local folks who care about their hometown schools.

Bringing public schools together with private partners will help us make the biggest leap forward in learning potential in our state's history.

And its potential goes way beyond the Internet. We're opening up to our children the world of the 21st century...where educators from across the nation can teach in your classroom, where doctors can do surgery from 3,000 miles away, where business people can meet with colleagues around the world without leaving the office.

The resources are here in South Carolina. We just need to get those resources into the classroom. After all, there's no doubt that high-tech learning leads to high-tech jobs.

So it's my hope that all of you will join us in carrying out this vision on our first SCINET Day... October 19th...or on one of the many SCINET Days yet to come.

In just a moment, I want to open the floor for questions from the media. But I want to remind reporters at our remote locations that we have people standing by to answer your questions there.

At Berkeley High School is principal Ben Hodges, along with SCINET partner...and an old friend of mine...Bobby Helmly.

At Palmetto Primary in the Upstate is principal Jerome Hudson and SCINET Partner Perry Bullard.

At South Florence High School is principal Curtis Boswell and SCINET Partner Pat Patton.

And here at Dent Middle School in Columbia is principal Cheryl Washington and SCINET Partner Stan Bugner.

All of you will be able to ask questions, but first I want to ask Joe Anderson of BellSouth, one of our most important SCINET partners, to make a couple of comments.