James B. Edwards
| James Burrows Edwards | |
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| In office January 23, 1981 – November 5, 1982 |
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| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Charles Duncan, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Donald P. Hodel |
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| Born | June 24 1927 Hawthorne, Florida |
James Burrows Edwards (born June 24, 1927) is a
politician and administrator from South Carolina. He
was the first Republican to be elected
Early life and career
Edwards was born in Hawthorne, Florida, and was an officer in the U.S. Maritime Service during World War II. He continued his service in the U.S. Naval Reserve after the war. Edwards received a bachelors degree in 1950 at the College of Charleston where he was a brother of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, a D.M.D. in 1955 from the University of Louisville, and did some post-graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Returning to Charleston, Edwards established a dentistry practice in 1960 that specialized in oral surgery. Consequently, he held a variety of positions associated with dentistry in the community.
Political career
Dr. Edwards began his political career when he won an election in 1972 to the South Carolina Senate as a Republican. Two years later, he entered the governor's race as a long-shot candidate. However, Senator Edwards upset General William Westmoreland in the Republican primary, and then defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan Dorn in the general election, thus becoming the first Republican governor of the state since Daniel Henry Chamberlain in 1876.
Later career
After his term expired, President Ronald Reagan appointed Governor Edwards to be the Secretary of Energy in 1981. He resigned a year later to serve as the President of the Medical University of South Carolina, a post he held for seventeen years. In 1997, Edwards was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame for his contributions as governor.
External links
| Preceded by John C. West |
1975 - 1979 |
Succeeded by Richard Riley |
| Preceded by Charles Duncan, Jr. |
United States
Secretary of Energy 1981 - 1982 |
Succeeded by Donald P. Hodel |
| Governors of South Carolina |
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| J. Rutledge •
Lowndes • J. Rutledge • Mathews • Guerard • Moultrie • T. Pinckney • C. Pinckney • Moultrie • |
| United States Secretaries of Energy | |
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| Schlesinger • Duncan • Edwards • Hodel • Herrington • Watkins • O'Leary • Peña • Richardson • Abraham • Bodman |  |
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