Jimmy Carter

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.

Fridays were special for Bonita Hightower. At her little restaurant in the middle of Plains, that’s the day orders would come from the town’s most celebrated couple. Baked catfish and vegetables for Rosalynn Carter. Fried catfish for President Jimmy Carter.

Nelle Ariail has 40 years' worth of stories about Jimmy Carter. There is the time the former president showed up in her driveway riding his bicycle to come see about a tree that had fallen in her yard. Or the time in the 1990s when he told Ariail’s husband, Dan, who served as Carter’s pastor at Maranatha Baptist Church and was pursuing his doctorate, he couldn’t do his work on a typewriter and not only gave him a computer, but also taught him how to use it.

The world was in the grip of the Cold War in 1952 when a nuclear reactor began melting down. That reactor, located at Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, had suffered an explosion on Dec. 12. Radioactive material had escaped into the atmosphere, and millions of gallons of radioactive water flooded into the reactor's basement. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the Canadians needed help to disassemble the reactor's damaged core. The United States sent 28-year-old Jimmy Carter.

Michael Dominick got the call last week that the city’s “smiling peanut” statue that sits on Georgia Highway 45 heading into Plains’ downtown needed to be spruced up. 

To folks outside of Jimmy Carter’s beloved hometown, he’s the famed peanut farmer-turned politician who is the longest-living president in U.S. history. But the people of Plains know him as something else: the neighbor and friend they simply call “Mr. Jimmy.”

Jimmy Carter, at 98 the oldest living former president, has chosen to spend his final days at home in Plains, Ga., in hospice care after a series of brief hospital stays, the Carter Center announced Saturday.

The tiny city of Plains, with all of its 736 residents, including a former president and first lady, is bustling this week ahead of Christmas.

President Joe Biden and three former presidents paid tribute Wednesday to late Veterans Administration chief and U.S. senator Max Cleland, who lost limbs while serving in Vietnam.