On South Georgia’s Corridor Z in 2017, three black SUVs streaked by our older son’s truck. His wife, Heather, turned and said, “Alan, there goes President and Mrs. Carter. I bet they are headed to the island.”
When the SUVs turned into the Friendly Express in Waynesville, Alan pulled in, too. Sure enough, it was the Carters. They were taking a rest stop. As Alan started walking toward the Carters, Secret Service agents signaled him to stop. That’s when Alan called out, “President Carter, I’m Alan NeSmith. We appreciate your help in the coal-ash fight.”
The 39th president of the United States—flashing his famous grin—walked past his guards. Shaking Alan’s hand, he said, “Tell your daddy hey.” The Nobel Peace Prize winner didn’t have to do that. But Jimmy Carter was just being, well, Jimmy Carter.
The peanut farmer and I met on the University of Georgia campus in the spring of 1970. I was chairing a political forum for gubernatorial candidates. There were seven Democrats in the race, but the real battle was between former Gov. Carl Sanders and the former State Sen. Carter from Plains.
When Carter arrived in Athens that May, he said, “I want to meet some students and find out what’s important to them.” I suggested that we climb on a UGA bus. He talked to every student, front to back.
In November, Carter beat his opponent—whom he dubbed Cufflinks Carl—to become Georgia’s 76th governor. Even though we met 54 years ago and stayed in touch, our friendship never reached fishing-buddy status. Nonetheless, the 39th president of the United States has always listened and responded. Among my keepsakes are Jimmy Carter letters and handwritten notes, stretching back to 1970.
Another special memory was during the 1996 Olympics. As a presidential ambassador for chairman Billy Payne, I hosted Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter at an event at the University of Georgia. Cordial as ever, the former president flashed his ear-to-ear smile when we talked about that 1970 bus tour with the UGA students.
While I was serving on the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents, Georgia Southwestern State University hosted some of our meetings. I was always fortunate to sit at the dinner table with President and Mrs. Carter. True to his recall, our discussions picked up where we had left them years ago. One time, we talked about the coincidence that my mother and Jimmy Carter were students at the Americus college when Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941.
If people figure that Jimmy Carter was just another farmer who had fallen off the peanut wagon, they have figured wrong. I suggest that you read The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kai Bird. And if you want to know more about Carter’s rural upbringing, I recommend the former president’s memoir, An Hour Before Daylight.
More than once, I’ve thanked Jimmy Carter for two of his gubernatorial legacies. He kept his promise to reorganize Georgia’s government, creating these new agencies: the Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Division. Our philosophies on environmental stewardship are in sync.
And when Wayne County was on the verge of becoming one of the largest toxic coal-ash dumps in America, Jimmy Carter stood up for my hometown. He had one-on-one conversations with the waste company’s largest shareholder, Microsoft’s Bill Gates. The correspondence and handwritten reports on those meetings are in my fireproof file.
Regardless of your political opinion of Jimmy Carter, I believe that he is the ultimate role model for former presidents. While others profited from their famous status, he used his genius and sweat to make this a better world.
Jimmy Carter could have ignored multitudes of requests from me and others, but he didn’t. And he certainly didn’t have to wave off the Secret Service to shake Alan’s hand. These are just two examples of what has defined his 100 years.
Happy birthday, James Earl Carter Jr.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com