Governor to speak at Erskine commencement May 6

Erskine will honor its college and seminary graduates Saturday, May 6, at 10:30 a.m., with Gov. Henry Dargan McMaster serving as this year’s commencement speaker. The ceremony will be conducted under the towers of the Erskine Building.

McMaster became South Carolina’s 117th governor in 2017, following Gov. Nikki Haley’s appointment as ambassador to the United Nations. He was elected to a full term in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Born in Columbia, S.C., he received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of South Carolina in 1969. He attended the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he served on the editorial board of the South Carolina Law Review and graduated in 1973. He practiced law for more than 40 years, both as a federal and state prosecutor and in private practice in state and federal courts.

A baccalaureate service is scheduled for Friday, May 5, at 7:00 p.m. in the Due West Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Matt Lucas will deliver the baccalaureate address.

Lucas is senior pastor of Reformation Presbyterian Church, an Associate Reformed Presbyterian congregation in Hendersonville, N.C. A 1995 graduate of the University of Missouri, he earned a Master of Divinity degree at Covenant Theological Seminary in 2001. He worked as a campus intern for Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at Clemson University; was an associate pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, S.C., for eight years; and for six of those years was RUF campus minister at the University of South Carolina. He and his wife Sallye have four children, ranging in age from 23 to 16.