Current News

/

ArcaMax

Plans underway for Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday

Matt Kempner, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on

Published in News & Features

Staff are still working out some of the plans. But locked in is an indoor and outdoor film festival at the presidential library on Sept. 28, the Saturday before Carter’s birthday, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., featuring some of his favorite movies while in office.

According to the library’s records, hundreds of movies were shown at the White House during his presidency, including All the President’s Men, Rocky, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Blue Lagoon, Caddyshack, Kramer vs. Kramer and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He watched parts or all of at least some of the films.

While Carter was Georgia’s governor he helped create an economic development push to film more movies in the state. He has another important connection to the big screen. Carter’s first date with Rosalynn Carter was at the movies. The next morning he told his mother he had found the person he would marry.

Admission to the library will be free on the day of the film festival. And on Oct. 1, Carter’s actual birthday, the library will follow its tradition of having the admission price match the president’s age: $1.00. (Last year on his 99th birthday, it was 99 cents.) As always, kids 16 or younger get in free.

The library and museum also intends to have a new exhibit about Carter’s 100 years, including documents, photos and art that haven’t been on display at the facility before, Clark said.

The adjacent Carter Center, the nonprofit that the former first couple founded to improve health, encourage freedom and spread peace globally, has yet to disclose how Carter’s birthday will be celebrated. The center’s chief executive, Paige Alexander, offered little more than a one-word hint: “music.”

“Music was an important part of his life. It will have something to do with that,” she said.

Habitat for Humanity, the Georgia-based homebuilding nonprofit that the Carters championed for more than three decades, already does a special building push each year coinciding with the former president’s birthday. This year the weeklong Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project will be in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

Alexander said this past week that there hasn’t been a change in Carter’s condition. She told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Politically Georgia” in May that he was “enjoying peanut butter ice cream.”

Jason Carter said on the AJC’s Monica Pearson Show in May that he recently told his grandfather that he’s never sure how to respond when asked how the former president is doing.

“He kind of laughed a little bit, and he looked at me, and he said: ‘I don’t know myself,’” Jason Carter told Pearson. “But I think he’s OK. You know, he’s hanging in there, and he knows he’s not in charge. So he’s just waiting for what’s next.”

Groups in Carter’s hometown of Plains are still sketching out plans for how to pay tribute around the time of his birthday.

Sumter Cycling, a nonprofit of southwest Georgia cyclers in Carter’s native Sumter County, typically holds a nearly 50-mile bicycle ride to coincide with the Plains Peanut Festival, which this year falls on the Saturday before Carter’s birthday. Now organizers are hashing out plans to more than double the Plains, Trains and Bike Chains ride to 100 miles in recognition of the former president’s big day.

The nearby Jimmy Carter National Historical Park is planning a riff on the Carters’ frugality. Staffers are putting together a list of 100 ways to save time, energy and money.

“That’s near and dear to the Carters’ hearts,” said Stuckey, the park’s superintendent.


©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus