As I read reports of President Carter’s transition into hospice care, I recalled my personal encounters with him with great fondness, and was not surprised to read so many tributes to him from all walks of life and political persuasions.
When I first began seriously pursuing photography, I entered and won a contest sponsored by the National Park Service, focused on photographs of the president’s boyhood home in Archery. The prize was a book signed by Mr. Carter. I felt I had come full circle as I had first visited the property during its dedication in November 2000. It was a wet and miserable day, but an overflow crowd gathered under a huge tent, eagerly listening to Mr. Carter’s reminisces about his life there. Since then, I’ve felt a fondness for the place that many others who have visited feel.
I was also privileged to visit Maranatha Baptist Church, like countless thousands of others over the years, and hear one of Mr. Carter’s Sunday School lessons. It was a moving experience, which I will always count among the greatest days of my life. There’s no way you could attend one of those special Sunday services and not understand what a good man he was. No one, certainly not Jimmy Carter, thought he was a saint, but his good works elevated him to a place few of us are able to reach. For his inspiration, I will be forever grateful.
