DATE:    9/10/96
WRITERS: Willard Strong, media relations specialist, 
         Santee Cooper, (803) 761-4053 
         Bill Baker, Clemson Extension news editor,
         (864) 656-3875
CONTACT: Jorge Calzadilla, director of South Carolina 4-H         
         Leadership Centers, (864) 656-1659                       
                                    
Dedication of Santee Cooper/Walter T. Cox Education Building
Set for Sept. 22

     CLEMSON -- The formal dedication of the Santee Cooper/Walter
T. Cox Education Building will be held Sept. 22 at the Robert
M. Cooper 4-H Leadership Center in Clarendon County.
     The dedication will be held at 4 p.m. in front of the new
4,500-square-foot building, with dinner following at Lazar Hall
on the grounds of the Cooper Leadership Center.
      Cox, 78, a former president of Clemson University who also
served for many years as dean of men, served as a member of the
Santee Cooper Board of Directors from 1973 to 1991. Santee Cooper
is the state-owned electric and water utility. He and his wife,
Jenelle, reside in Clemson.
     "To those of us who have been around for a while, Walter Cox
is synonymous with Clemson University," said Dr. B.K. "Bud" Webb,
former Clemson vice president for agriculture, natural resources
and research. "He is still affectionately known as "Dean Cox" to
literally thousands of Clemson people. It is great to see him
recognized in such a fitting way."
     Clemson President Constantine Curris said, "Walter Cox is 
one of the great citizens of the Palmetto state and one of those
special people who has touched the lives of so many of our alumni
and citizens."
      The Santee Cooper Board of Directors voted in February 1992
to contribute $50,000 a year for six years to fund construction
of an educational building at the Cooper Leadership Center.
     The educational building, which can accommodate about 100
people, includes a large meeting area, four adjacent classrooms
that can be used as "breakout" meeting rooms for smaller groups,
and a multimedia projection room. The building is adjacent to a
hotel-style lodging facility.
     "We're thrilled for the 4-H camping program to have a
building on our site that honors Walter Cox and the important
role he has played with Clemson," said Jorge Calzadilla, director
of the South Carolina 4-H Leadership Centers. "It is particularly
appropriate that Walter Cox, who has devoted his life to working
with youth, should be honored at a site that now hosts more than
17,000 young people each year."
     The Cooper Leadership Center is operated by the Clemson
University Cooperative Extension Service and its Department of
Family and Youth Development as a public service dedicated to
youth development in South Carolina. More than 130,000 youth and
adults have used the camp since it opened in 1943.
     The center, originally and still affectionately called Camp
Bob Cooper, is on a 110-acre peninsula on Lake Marion,
approximately three miles from the Santee Dam. Santee Cooper has
leased the land to Clemson at no cost since 1942. Camp Bob Cooper
was built in 1943 by Clemson College on property that was the
former site of Labor Camp No. 32 during construction of the
Santee Cooper Hydroelectric and Navigation Project.
     The 4-H facility is named for Robert Muldrow Cooper, Santee
Cooper's first general manager and a lifetime Clemson trustee.
     The $48 million federally funded Santee Cooper project,
built from 1939 and 1942, created Lakes Marion and Moultrie,
commonly known as the Santee Cooper Lakes. It was the largest
land-clearing project in the history of the United States.
     Santee Cooper provides power to more than one million South
Carolinians, and generates the electricity distributed by 15 of
the state's 20 electric cooperatives in 35 counties. It is the
nation's fourth largest public power utility based on kilowatt-
hour sales.
                               END