FLORENCE—Francis Marion University will award honorary degrees to Dillon High coaching legend and State House Representative Jackie Elliot Hayes and  longtime FMU Provost Dr. Richard N. Chapman  at spring commencement ceremonies at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 7, in the Smith University Center gymnasium.

Hayes has devoted much of his professional career to serving the people of Dillon and the Pee Dee, both as an acclaimed football coach and athletic director and as a hard-working member of the South Carolina Legislature.
Hayes became head football coach at his alma mater, Dillon High School, 1992. He has led the Wildcats to 14 regional titles, 10 lower state titles and six state championships. That’s a noteworthy record, one that led to Hayes’ election to the South Carolina Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame in 2012, but Hayes takes more pride in the dozens of Dillon players he’s helped to attend college on football scholarships or otherwise.
Hayes has also served the Pee Dee and the state faithfully in the South Carolina Legislature, where he’s served in the House of Representatives for 18 years. Hayes represents House District 55 (parts of Dillon, Darlington, Horry and Marlboro counties).
Hayes is currently a member of the powerful House Ways and Means committee, and, as is appropriate for a man who has spent his life educating young people, is on the Ways and Means’ K-12 subcommittee. Hayes and his wife, Amanda McLellan Hayes, have three children.
Hayes graduated from Catawba College in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, recreation and administration.
Chapman, FMU’s provost for the past 16 years, will also be the commencement speaker.
FMU expects to confer degrees to more than 350 graduates during the commencement. Chapman has been the provost of FMU since the 2000-01 school year. He spent 10 years as the chair of the Department of History at FMU prior to that.
Chapman, who’s spent more than 40 years in higher education, is a renowned scholar of U.S. political and economic history, especially in the period spanning the Great Depression and World War II. He is the author of numerous published articles on this topics and others.