Friends and neighbors of Jimmy Carter reflect on the passing of the President from Plains: ‘It leaves us with a big job to carry on their legacy’

PLAINS – Jimmy Carter was the only president to come from Georgia, and the region of the state he hailed from happens to be one that is often overlooked – the largely rural and impoverished southwest corner.

Yet, friends and neighbors of Carter will tell you that it was the former president’s humble, farming upbringing in southwest Georgia that built the character of a man who was loved worldwide for his philanthropy and service.

Annette Wise, a friend of the Carters, said both Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter learned generosity from their hometown community.

“The people in this community had a tremendous impact on their life,” she said. “They (the Carters) could have lived anywhere in the world, and yet they chose to come back to Plains”

In the days after Jimmy Carter’s death on Dec. 29, people from across the country flocked to the tiny town of Plains, GA, which has a population of about 550, to visit the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. Flags sat at half-staff, and small memorial sites popped up at various landmarks. Business owners hosted an influx of visitors in a usually quiet, historic downtown. 

As tourists tasted peanut butter ice cream – a Plains delicacy – and shopped for vintage presidential campaign memorabilia, friends and neighbors of Jimmy Carter said they hoped visitors would leave inspired to do more for their communities just as the former President did in Plains. 

On New Year’s Day, a volunteer group including students from the Future Farmers of America at Sumter County Middle School worked to help clean up gardens along the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail in downtown Plains.

The Trail was the brainchild of Rosalynn and Wise, the president and cofounder of the program who also serves on the Plains Historic Preservation Trust. The trail is a preservation effort for monarch butterflies that has grown to 3,000 member gardens worldwide since its inception in 2013. 

Fredando Jackson, a Plains native and executive director of Flint River Fresh, a non-profit combating food insecurity in the region, helped organize the volunteer group in an effort to honor Jimmy Carter’s legacy and servitude by cleaning up the gardens in preparation for the funeral services. 

He said he hopes Plains visitors understand that the former president’s legacy was a simple one: looking out for others.

“This town makes you pause and reflect, slow down,” Jackson said. “I hope people, in their time of reflection, start thinking about ‘what can I do to be a better neighbor?’”

Jake Dutcher, the 14-year-old vice president of Sumter County Middle’s FFA program, said he chose to come out and work on a holiday to spruce up the gardens in preparation for Jimmy Carter’s funeral and the hundreds to thousands of visitors it would bring. 

He worked with other volunteers, pruning back brittle, winter bushes and laying out pine straw. While there would be no butterflies or bright flowers at this time of year, the group cleared dead debris to give the public gardens a fresh look. The FFA regularly completes this work and grows many of the plants used in the gardens. 

“It’s very tragic that he passed away, but at least we know they’ll (Jimmy and Rosalynn) be together … we can continue their legacy by helping around the community and continuing to plant flowers,” Dutcher said. 

Jimmy Carter was a lifelong member of FFA, a youth organization dedicated to preparing members for careers in the science, business and technology of agriculture. Wise said the former president’s first leadership position was as the FFA president at Plains High School. She said he’d be thrilled to see the work the students were doing today.

Dutcher said it was exciting to think about the former president’s time in FFA – an inspiration for leadership opportunities to come to the students. 

Wise said there’s a lot to learn about leadership and service by growing up in Plains and in the light cast by the former president’s devotion to the town. The southwest Georgia community tended to the traits Jimmy Carter was so widely known for, watering the seeds of a future U.S. President and humanitarian. 

By growing up on his family’s peanut farm, where the introduction of electricity and running water made a big difference, Jimmy Carter learned about the vitality of energy resources.

Jackson said Jimmy Carter learned to be a proponent for conservation and protecting the environment at the farm as well. The former president was well known for his environmental advocacy worldwide and within Georgia. As Georgia’s governor, Jimmy Carter blocked an effort to dam up the 344-mile Flint River at Sprewell Bluff near Thomaston in the 1970s.

Jackson said farming also taught the former president selflessness.

“As a farmer, your goal is to provide for somebody else,” he said. “That’s what servant leadership is.” 

Wise said through the Carters’ high school teacher, Julia Coleman, who was known for her kindness and her equal treatment of both Black and white students, despite Plains High School not being integrated at the time, Jimmy Carter learned tolerance and to care for all community members. 

Jackson said he remembers church services at Lebanon Baptist Church, watching the Carters’ daughter perform the violin. If Jackson attended a funeral in Plains, GA, he said he was guaranteed to see flowers from the former president, no matter who the service was for. Jackson’s grandparents grew up in the neighborhood where the Boyhood Farm is.

He said standing in downtown Plains means you’re just blocks away from all 550 residents, the high school, low income housing. Jackson said this creates a mindset of ‘how can I ensure my neighbors thrive and prosper’ in all of those who call the town home.

“We all joke around and talk about ‘Uncle Jimmy,’ but that was just the nature of growing up here,” Jackson said.

Wise wore gardening gloves and a Butterfly Trail sweatshirt with a printed drawing by Jimmy Carter of a monarch butterfly and native milkweed plant, as she worked alongside volunteers on New Year’s Day. 

Both Wise and her husband were born in Plains. She said Jimmy Carter taught her husband’s Sunday school class and her husband grew up with Chip Carter, the Carters’ son. 

When Wise got involved with the Plains Historical Preservation Trust and statewide Jimmy Carter Education Program, she developed a close friendship with Rosalynn.

“The Carters were role models,” Wise said. “I’ve learned a lot from their friendship – that it’s important to give back.” 

She said the people in Plains had a tremendous impact on the Carters’ life and that in turn, the Carters supported their neighbors in need. The Carters were active in their church community and various other local civic organizations. Wise said the couple weren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves to help out.

Wise said their loss will resonate across the community.

“It leaves us with a big job to carry on their legacy,” she said.

But Wise isn’t worried. She said there are enough people in Plains that cared for the Carters and will rally together to reflect what Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter modeled for them.