Between building Habitat houses, traveling to London to speak in Parliament and teaching Sunday school nearly every weekend, it’s doubtful Jimmy Carter has had much time to compile one of those “year in review”-type missives people are so fond of sending out around the holidays.
So allow us to do it for him.
Even for the legendarily busy former president and Georgia governor it was a full year. Neither age (the Plains native turned 92 on Oct. 1) nor last year’s cancer diagnosis (it went into remission, although he continues to get regular checkups and scans) slowed his pace of activity or newsmaking much.
Consider:
In January, Carter welcomed Paula Deen, the chatty TV chef who's a longtime chum, to Plains for a fundraising weekend built around their mutual love of painting. Dubbed "Painting, Paula and a President," the event included a daylong class taught by renowned Atlanta painter James Richards, an intimate dinner downstairs in the Plains Inn followed by an exclusive slumber party upstairs hosted by Deen (Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, went home to their modest ranch house "compound" to sleep). The next morning, everyone headed to Maranatha Baptist Church, where Carter taught Sunday school to several hundred people, many of whom stayed around to snap selfies afterwards with Deen ("a big personality," is how a chuckling Carter described her to the AJC).
In early February, Carter went to London to address members of Parliament and other august types gathered in the House of Lords about nearly three decades of work fighting parasitic disease in some of the poorest places on earth. Earlier in the day Britain had said it would provide £4.5 million (about $6.5 million) in new support for the Carter Center's Guinea Worm Eradication Program. With only 22 known cases worldwide compared to 3.5 million in 1986 when the Carter Center started its campaign, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said to thunderous applause, Guinea Worm disease was "on the brink of eradication."
Still, it was Carter's Q&A after his speech that really drew headlines. Asked to handicap the U.S. presidential election, Carter savvily broke down the ongoing Republican and Democratic primary races. Then he nearly broke the Internet by saying that if it came down to a choice between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, he'd go with The Donald for president.
One month later, in early March, Carter told his Sunday school class that his doctors at Emory Winship Cancer Institute had told him he no longer needed treatment for cancer. In August 2015, Carter had disclosed that four small melanoma lesions had been found on his brain. The discovery followed the removal of a lesion on his liver that took about ten percent of the organ. He said he would receive four drug treatments, along with radiation therapy. Since the March announcement, the former president has continued to get regular scans and MRI's and will resume treatment if necessary.
In April, National Park Service director Jonathan B. Jarvis went to Plains to officially declare Carter an honorary National Park ranger. The honor, which came complete with the iconic Ranger's hat, was recognition of Carter's leadership in creating 39 National Park Service units during his presidency and the courage he showed in designating some 56 million acres in Alaska as National Monuments. Now widely hailed, the decision was extraordinarily controversial at the time, leading Carter to quip during the ceremony that the Secret Service had doubled his protection whenever he went to Alaska.
Then, on July 7, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter marked their 70th wedding anniversary. Before heading off to Annapolis, Md., to celebrate with a dinner dance during their annual Carter Center retreat (this summer also marked the 70th anniversary of Carter's graduation from the United States Naval Academy there), the former first couple sat down with the AJC and discussed what many consider to be their greatest accomplishment. "It always gets applause when I mention it publicly," Jimmy Carter chuckled about their lengthy marriage.
In late July, Carter delivered a videotaped address to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Introduced in person by his grandson, former Georgia state senator and 2014 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter, the former president (and convention superdelegate) said that at a time when it was "more important than ever to lift people up … we see a Republican president candidate who seems to violate some of the most important moral and ethical principles on which our nation was founded. We can and must do better."
In August, exactly one year after he'd told the world he had cancer, Carter headed to Memphis for the Habitat for Humanity's 33rd Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project. For five days in the sweltering Delta sun, the 91-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and his 88-year-old wife led hundreds of volunteers — including their friends and fellow marrieds, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood — in building 19 houses just north of the Uptown neighborhood.
In September, at his annual Town Hall meeting with first year Emory students, Carter declared this the "worst" election season ever, with only the Civil War proving more divisive to the country in his opinion. He also announced he and 21 family members in Georgia would all be voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Longtime regulars at Turner Field, which is just a short drive from their apartment at the Carter Center, on Oct. 2, Jimmy and Rosalynn pulled on their Braves caps and took in the final game at The Ted before the team moves to Cobb County for the 2017 season. Meanwhile, just call him the Atlanta Sports Fan in Chief: On Oct. 23, Carter was at the Georgia Dome for the coin toss during the Atlanta Falcons game against the San Diego Chargers.
On Nov. 9, Carter made a congratulatory phone call to president elect Donald Trump (he also called Secretary Clinton). He told his Sunday school class a few days later, "I called Donald Trump first, and I told him to call on me if he needs me or the Carter Center. Our family did not vote for Mr. Trump, but we'll support him in every way we can. I hope everyone else will, too."
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