ORONO – Gov. John Baldacci urged members of the Class of 2003 at Saturday’s University of Maine commencement to put their education and leadership skills to work for Maine.

“Take your diploma, this light of learning, this lantern of reasoning, and carry it with you, so that people from other states and other regions can continue to see the leadership that comes from Maine,” he told this year’s 1,803 graduates, urging them to follow in the footsteps of such internationally known Maine natives as U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe and former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell.

University of Maine President Peter Hoff presided over Saturday’s graduation, the university’s 201st and the first in three years to take place under sunny skies.

With an audience of 11,500 people, this year’s commencement is believed to be the single-largest gathering in the university’s history, according to spokesman Joe Carr.

Graduation-goers clogged local roads, resulting in bumper-to-bumper traffic from the Kelly Road exit of Interstate 95 to Mill Street in downtown Orono.

In his address, the governor noted Maine’s flagship university was a leader in research and development, which could serve as an economic engine for Maine.

“It’s not research for research’s sake,” he said. “It’s research for jobs and better opportunities for the people of our state.”

He said a recent report suggested that Maine could boost its residents’ incomes by raising the level of education among adults and investing in research and development – an area where Maine has lagged but is catching up.

To that end, Baldacci urged graduates and their families and friends to support a $60 million economic stimulus bond package that will be the subject of a statewide referendum June 10. More than half the total, $37 million, is earmarked for research and development.

Baldacci, who earned a history degree in 1986 while serving as a state senator, is the first UM graduate to be elected state governor since John Reed, who served from 1959 to 1966, according to a graduation fact sheet. Baldacci said seven of his eight brothers and sisters also are UM alumni.

This year, four valedictorians and four salutatorians – all of them from Maine – were recognized.

The valedictorians were mechanical engineering major Andrew Goupee of Orrington; Kristen McGregor, a computer science major from South Berwick; Katie Nadeau of Madawaska, who majored in zoology with a minor in psychology; and Jessica Seldon from Berwick, whose major was ecology and environmental sciences with a minor in mathematics.

Salutatorians were biochemistry major Heidi Crosby of Orono; Steven Fellows of Rockland, a financial economics major; Lisa Johnson of Windham, who majored in international affairs-political science and minored in history and economics; and music performance major Amanda Reynolds from Searsport.

Also Saturday, UM awarded honorary doctor of humane letters degrees to Richard Russo, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Empire Falls,” and Julia Watkins, president of American University in Bulgaria since 1993.

Watkins, a UM faculty member and administrator for more than two decades, will take the helm of the Council on Social Work Education on July 1.