Jimmy Carter, in his final campaign, is surrounded by friends

PLAINS — Jimmy Carter could have lived anywhere after he was defeated by Ronald Reagan, but his return to Plains more than four decades ago gave the tiny southwest Georgia hamlet new purpose.

Now the town that helped forge the former president and his wife Rosalynn has turned into a living memorial for the 98-year-old as he spends his final days in home hospice. And around him, a community prepares to say goodbye to someone they know as more than a president, but a neighbor and a beloved friend.

They’ve seen him at the ice cream parlor grabbing soft-serve, taking strolls or puttering in a golf cart with his wife Rosalynn down the main drag, grabbing a bite at the café.

They’ve welcomed the tourists who gawk at his rustic boyhood home, roam the creaky halls of his high school, wander through the cramped campaign office selected by Carter as the base of his presidential bid because it was the only available place in town with a working commode.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Their town of barely 500 people could have withered like so many others. But the former president has done more than just sustain it. He’s served it, presiding over the annual parade, delivering regular sermons at Maranatha Baptist Church and planning for its future after he’s gone.

Carter was once asked why he decided to return home to Plains instead of a flashier city like Atlanta or New York. Carter told the interviewer the answer was in his question.

Plains was home.

‘We’re all sad’

Michael Dominick was in a rush. It usually took him seven hours to fix up the 13-foot peanut with the too-wide smile that’s become one of the town’s standout landmarks.

But it was Sunday and he knew that a flood of tourists, reporters and dignitaries would soon descend on Plains to bid farewell to Carter. A few hours earlier last weekend, Carter’s nonprofit had announced that he was forgoing medical intervention to spend his remaining time in hospice care at his home.

Truth is, Dominick never thought Carter liked the toothy grin that is meant as an ode to the president’s megawatt smile.

But the “smiling peanut” had become a prized tourist attraction in its perch just outside an RV lot, and the town paid him to keep it up. It was his job, and he did so with pride.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

As he painted the oversized legume — in a shade fittingly called “peanut” — the town around him prepared for the inevitable day many had for so long dreaded.

Already, TV crews from Atlanta, New York, Washington and beyond were racing to town. A maintenance staffer hurried to the main commercial strip with a pressure-washer in hand, blasting away debris on every inch of the sidewalk.

Down the road at Maranatha, a handful of congregants gathered for regular Sunday services. So, too, did a half-dozen camera crews.

The church was founded in 1977 after a split with a nearby Baptist church that voted against allowing Black congregants to join. Carter became a member in 1981, and his Sunday school lessons drew international crowds. Until he stopped preaching regularly, visitors would camp out in the parking lot to assure themselves a spot in the pews.

Jan Williams, a dear friend of the Carters and a church elder, was one of the first to arrive in the frigid morning, shortly after the sun peeked over the tree line.

“Plains is sad. We’re all sad. We knew this day is coming,” she sighed. “But I just hope that we can all have our private time of reminiscing and grieving and prepare for our final service here. It’s going to be hard.”

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

As a handful of pickup trucks and SUVs pulled up to the lot, Williams couldn’t help but also wonder what’s next for her congregation after its most famous resident is gone.

“What’s going to happen to my church? Today we might have a few more members here, but usually it’s less than 25. We don’t have but two children,” she said, as a few parishioners in their Sunday finery slipped inside the chapel.

“I hope and I pray that we can continue on with our story as being a church that a former president and a president taught in during his lifetime.”

‘Be tenacious’

As the news of Carter’s declining health spread, some had the instant urge to do something — anything — to honor his memory.

Carter Fay was one of them. He dropped everything and drove to Plains, where he wandered the same streets that made Carter the president he became.

A budding politician himself, Fay reached out to the former president a few years ago, asking for advice on how to make a lasting change in his community. He can still recite it back in a flash:

“Learn as much as possible about the things that particularly interest you; be tenacious in fulfilling commitments, whether to others or to yourself; volunteer your time and talents to community projects, learning all you can about the specific needs of the county or state in which you live; and treat everyone - family, friends, and strangers - with honesty and respect.”

Now the chair of the Georgia High School Democrats, Fay said the message served as a “foundation” in his life. And he wanted to do something to give back, even if it was just trying to walk in his footsteps along the strip of shops on the town’s modest main drag.

‘Never go away’

Plains doesn’t have a place where visitors can fill up their gas tanks, but it has the “Billy Carter Gas Station Museum” where folks can pick through the colorful articles from the president’s eccentric late brother’s closet.

There’s no school in town, but the shuttered high school where Carter drew inspiration from his inspiring teacher “Miss Julia” stands as a national historic site.

And Plains doesn’t have a supermarket, but it has a memorabilia shop filled with treasures from Carter’s political past — and 46-year-old cans of the foul Billy Beer that his brother famously brewed.

But if Carter has a favorite spot, it might be the boyhood farm a few miles down the road in the hamlet of Archery.

The three-bedroom home still stands there, complete with a shelf with his favorite books and a pair of dirty blue jeans. Behind it sits the still-working railroad that would send those visiting the Carters into hysterics when it roared by at 2 a.m.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Outside is the towering windmill that helped deliver running water for the first time to the property, standing vigil amid chickens noisily clucking nearby.

One morning this past week, tour guide Stacy Dominick led a small group of teens by the commissary where the Carters used to sell homemade goods.

“This history will never go away.”

Not long ago, Carter asked his Secret Service detail to bring him back for a tour. He took in the sights of his childhood, perhaps for the last time.

And before he left, he made sure he took some eggs from the coop, just as he had so many times so long ago.

‘Try to be nice’

Spend a little time in Plains and you’re bound to meet someone with a deep connection to the Carter family. And residents are bursting with stories of their memories of the former president and his wife.

The lifeguard who blew a whistle chiding a group for horse-playing in the pool only to realize it was Carter trying to dunk a Secret Service agent.

The clerk who confided that Carter confessed to her he liked her chicken and dumplings more than the new recipe at the neighboring diner.

The college professor who accidentally stumbled upon Carter’s property — then saw a sign the next day that read “no trespassing” with Carter’s initials.

“I had a mutual friend ask Carter and I was assured it was a ‘poaching problem,’ but I knew better,” quipped the academic, Evan Kutzler. “Those signs were for one person — me.”

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

Some of the most poignant remembrances, however, came from unexpected sources, including those outside the town.

Former Gov. Nathan Deal has had plenty of reason to hold a grudge against Carter. When he ran for a second term against Carter’s grandson Jason in 2014, the former president was one of his most formidable adversaries. He helped bring attention and campaign contributions to his Democratic opponent’s bid.

But at the state Capitol this week, Deal grew emotional as he talked about Carter’s legacy — and paid him tribute by connecting Carter with the memory of his late wife Sandra.

“He always had a point of view that sometimes politics does not encourage, and that is to try to be nice to everyone,” Deal said.

“That was the motto that my late wife had. It doesn’t cost anything to be nice. And he’ll be remembered for being somebody that you felt comfortable with because you knew that he had a good heart.”

‘Pick up the mantle’

By the end of the week, Maranatha is a hive of activity. This was an off-week for choir practice, but the interior of the church was being steam-cleaned while outside work trucks filled the parking lot and contractors resurfaced the cracked pavement.

Carter built the wooden cross that hung on the chapel at the woodshop in his house, along with the wooden collection bowls that ushers pass around. He loved to sprinkle his twice-monthly lessons with personal stories about his presidency or his pastimes.

Aside from the cosmetic enhancements, church members plan to leave a lasting tribute to the former president. A circular space in the center of the freshly paved parking lot has been left for a tree to be planted in Carter’s memory.

“His heart is that Plains will grow,” said Carter’s pastor Tony Lowden. “The people who love him want it to grow. He’s built us the blueprint. We need to pick up the mantle.”

Down the street, the stores along the main strip glowed each evening with hundreds of light bulbs. Normally, the commercial drag is only lit over Christmastime, but during her evening walk through town, Carter’s niece Kim Fuller decided it was time to break from tradition.

“I thought, ‘You know what? This might be a good time to turn them on,’” she said.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

‘He’ll be here’

Not far away sits the ranch home that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have shared since 1961, assessed recently for less than the value of the imposing Secret Service vehicles that sit outside.

The blink-and-you-miss it compound is surrounded by a government-owned fence on the edge of town, with a converted garage that Carter used as a study to write his books, and a lap pool out back for exercise. The property years ago was deeded to the National Park Service, which one day plans to turn it into a museum.

One night this week, Carter’s grandson James Carter visited the home and put on an impromptu juggling show to try to brighten his grandfather’s spirits.

The next evening, a woman who drove up alone from Tampa sat outside to play “Anchors Aweigh” — the U.S. Naval Academy’s fight song — on a hammered dulcimer on her lap in hopes that the breeze would somehow carry the melody to the Carters.

“I want people to know, this man may be leaving this world, but he has a wonderful place he’s going to,” said Williams, the longtime Carter friend. “And we all should want to be there with him one day.”

And when he’s gone, he’ll leave behind a final act of kindness for the town that he cherished.

“We always wondered when he left the White House would he go to Atlanta? But in his mind, he was coming home,” said LeAnne Smith, a niece.

“And he could be buried anywhere. But he’ll be here. Home.”

Staff writers Henri Hollis, Vanessa McCray and Maya T. Prabhu contributed to this report from Plains.