(Cedar City, UT) - Southern Utah University will be the home of a new center for the study of public lands named for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a former student.

The Nevada Democrat is scheduled to be at the Cedar City campus Thursday to deliver a lecture and unveil plans for the Harry Reid Center for Outdoor Engagement at Southern Utah University.

The university has not released details of the center, saying only that Reid will make a "special announcement" after giving a talk about his background, including his time as an SUU student.

Former Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, who will attend the dedication, said the center's "focus is on public lands and multiple use, recreation as well as preservation, the kinds of things all western senators are interested in."

Bennett said that interest crosses party lines.

"Senator Reid is very much deserving of the honor of having it named after him because he's in the forefront of dealing with these issues," he said. "Many of these issues are not ideological."

Reid helped pass Bennett's Washington County lands bill, which set land use policy for the growing area backed by groups representing a wide range of views and is widely seen as model legislation.

"I've always been grateful that the Senate majority leader was a Westerner, who understood Western problems in ways that Easterners did not," Bennett said.