(Columbia) December 7, 2005 - Former Governor Carroll Campbell has died. A spokesman says that Campbell died early Wednesday morning at the Lexington Medical Center. He was 65.
Wednesday morning, a staff member found the former Governor not breathing. An ambulance rushed Campbell to Lexington Medical Center.
Family friend Bob McAlister said Campbell wasn't feeling well in the last few days. But the heart attack was unexpected, "Governor Campbell passed away this morning and was pronounced dead at 8:49am. He died of a heart attack. He was 65 years old."
Doctors do believe Campbell died peacefully, in his sleep. ER Dr. Todd Crump says, "I explained to the family he did not suffer anymore. We were all grateful for that."
Campbell leaves behind his wife, two sons and four grandchildren.
Campbell was remembered by members of both parties as a politically savvy governor who changed the face of state government and recruited some of South Carolina's biggest industries.
Campbell served as Governor of South Carolina for eight years. He helped make the Republican Party a powerful force in South Carolina and changed the face of state government while recruiting big-name industries.
One of the themes of Campbell's inauguration was economic development, and it came naturally to Carroll Campbell because he had a background in business. Before he ran for public office he operated a successful parking service franchise, Handypark.
When he decided to run for governor in 1986, Campbell campaigned on a pro-growth, pro-business platform, saying, "You have to get this economy to grow. You have to get salaries up! you have to get more investment, more jobs, more taxpayers."
And that attitude became the cornerstone of Carroll Campbell's administration. In the eight years Campbell held the office of Governor, he brought in an estimated $22 billion of investment into South Carolina and thousands of jobs.
Among his biggest projects were the $700 million expansion of the Union Camp Paper Mill in Eastover and a $200 million expansion of the Michelin plant in Lexington.
In the summer of 1992, Governor Campbell joined officials from BMW to announce that company's plans to build the first North American plant. It would be in the Upstate, near Greer. Campbell had been working on the deal for years, and in early 1992, word started leaking that South Carolina might be in the running for the plant.
When the company rejected a potential site in Anderson County, Campbell and others packed off to Germany in hopes of pitching another site. After months of work, talks were going nowhere fast. The chairman of BMW in the US recalls a key meeting in the spring of 1992 that changed everything.
With state and BMW officials and lawyers filling the mansion, Governor Campbell and the BMW executives took a more personal approach, "Four of us...sat around the pool at the Governor's mansion at a nice day in the spring of 1992."
Campbell also tells the story in a taped interview, "And so I suggested why don't you go out by the pool and we went out by the pool and sat around under an umbrella and had a little iced tea and sat in the chairs."
The BMW chairman remembers, "We carried on our negotiations in short sleeves on a one to one basis."
Campbell relates on the tape, "We started talking. Well, we didn't have any paperwork. And so we started saying, well what do we agree on? What do we disagree on? And so it, we took a napkin and turned that napkin over and, you know, wrote off the ideas."
"And we said, well, do we have a deal? And we reached that point, and the BMW people said we have a deal."
The chairman tells the same story. He says they, "confirmed the understanding with a handshake."
"Just the four of us, no staff. And believe it or not, no lawyers!"
Shortly thereafter, the company began the construction of its huge state-of-the-art plant.
And as BMW came close to opening, a ripple effect could be seen in the area. Twelve suppliers were opening up shop, making seats and axles. The building boom included housing developments, new highways and shopping centers.
It was in the fall of 1994 that cars began actually rolling off the assembly line in Greer.
In October, the company presented a custom-built vehicle to the state of South Carolina and Carroll Campbell was the first person to crank up that special BMW and give it his personal seal of approval.
At the opening ceremony for the Greer facility, Campbell told the audience his hope for South Carolina's future, "You see, I'm an optimist. I'm an optimist about South Carolina. The work we've done together is sure to bear fruit for years to come. So I hope that we resolve to continue to create this stated opportunity right here in South Carolina."
Governor Campbell's passion for bettering South Carolina stretched beyond economics. He also focused on education, the arts, and young people. Campbell showed that care by creating the Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities with the woman who was his eighth grade teacher. That teacher, Virginia Uldrick, reflects on how it got started, "He saw what an opportunity there was at a nontraditional high school to take children to a level of excellence they'd never been before."
But along with the victories there were setbacks, and one of Carroll Campbell's greatest tests as Governor came in the time after the night of September 21, 1989. That's when he had to deal with the physical and economic devastation caused by Hurricane Hugo.
It caused the deaths of 28 people and billions of dollars in damage. The governor surveyed that damage with the first President Bush and Senator Strom Thurmond and later said he couldn't believe his eyes, "I, I wasn't prepared for it. You know, I had never seen mass destruction. But when you flew into a little community like McClellanville and all the shrimp boats were blown up over the top of trees and the houses were fallen away and destroyed, or you went to the Isle of Palms and you just saw just bare sand or you landed, you know, at any of the places along the coast and realized that these places are just gone, just totally destroyed."
Within hours of the storm, volunteers were lined up across the state prepared to lend a hand, but one unfortunate activity during the recovery made the Governor furious, price gouging, "In addition, we have issued an executive order which addresses the problems of gouging, and under the emergency orders of this state, makes it illegal to artificially inflate prices in the areas of disaster."
Campbell said, "Some people were selling ice down there for $10 for a little bag of ice, and I just got livid over that, you know? And I blew up over it. Just really made me mad that people are out there gouging."
"We put out the word over the South that we needed ice and the ice companies from everywhere, I don't know where they came from. Trucks started coming in, giving away ice. Giving it away!"
The Governor helped to lead the state down the road to recovery by getting Federal disaster relief and encouraging the rebuilding process.
When Carroll Campbell walked down the steps of the State House for the final time as governor, he left office as one of South Carolina's most popular chief executives. That day, the new governor, David Beasley, thanked Campbell for his eight years of leadership, "He's taken us to new economic heights. His leadership has saved lives. His stewardship reformed government. To Carroll Campbell, I say, the people of South Carolina love you dearly. And on behalf of them, thank you for everything you have done."
After leaving office, Governor Campbell took a lucrative position as a lobbyist for the insurance industry in Washington.
He also stayed active in politics. In 1996, he endorsed Bob Dole for the Republican nomination for President and Dole said that Campbell was on his potential short list of Vice Presidential candidates. And in 2000, he helped George W. Bush win the South Carolina presidential primary, a turning point for the ultimately successful Bush campaign.
Then, in October of 2001, Campbell told South Carolinians that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In December, the former governor, in an interview with WIS, showed that he was still the fighter who had won so many political campaigns, "It's the toughest campaign, which I intend to win."
And he remained active in politics, doing a campaign ad for Republican candidate Mark Sanford. His public appearances became more infrequent and he was taken to a full-time residential treatment center.
Campbell was 65-years-old when he died. Campbell served as Governor of South Carolina from 1987 until 1995. Prior to that, he served eight years in the United States Congress and he also served in the South Carolina State Senate.
Instead of flowers, the Campbell family would like donations to go to the South Carolina Alzheimer's Association . The address is PO Box 7044, Columbia, SC 29202.
Make sure you mark on the envelope that it's for the Carroll Campbell Respite Program. That program gives family members time and helps relieve the stress they may experience while providing care for a loved one with Alzheimer's.
Updated 1:39pm by Bryce Mursch with AP