Terry Edward Haskins (January 31, 1955 – October 24, 2000) was a South Carolina Republican politician who served as the Speaker pro-tempore of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1995 until his death five years later. Background Haskins was the second of four children born in Pontiac in Oakland County in the Detroit, Michigan, metropolitan area to Charles "Ed" and Dorothy Haskins, who were evangelical Christians. As a high school student, Haskins developed his musical and dramatic talents and was elected president of his class. In 1972, he entered fundamentalist Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, from which in 1976 he received a Bachelor of Arts in Speech and in 1978 a Master of Arts in public speaking. His graduate speech recital described his plan to become President of the United States. While still a graduate student at BJU, Haskins became chairman of the Greenville Young Republicans. Haskins graduated in 1981 from the University of South Carolina School of Law in the capital city of Columbia and returned to Greenville to begin his legal practice. Political life In 1983, he became at twenty-eight the youngest member ever elected to the Greenville City Council, in which he represented District 1 during the early tenure of Mayor Bill Workman. In 1986, Haskins was elected as a conservative Republican to the state legislature from the district that contained Bob Jones University and held that seat until his death. In 1990, he lost a bid for the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina's 4th congressional district to the Democrat Liz J. Patterson, who had previously defeated the Republicans Bill Workman in 1986 and Knox H. White in 1988, the current mayor of Greenville. Although he continued to take conservative positions on such topics as sex education in the schools, Haskins quickly developed bipartisan relationships in the state legislature, having endorsed affirmative action, the election of African American judges, and the admission of women to The Citadel. Haskins's support for extending scholarships for South Carolina residents to the then-unaccredited Bob Jones University was accepted by the legislative Black Caucus because unaccredited black schools were also included in the final bill. In 1995, Haskins was elected speaker pro-tempore of the House. By 1999, he was influential in settling the two most divisive political issues of the period, including the compromise by which the legislature was able to remove the Confederate battle flag