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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