Jimmy Carter, Longest Living President, Marks 98th Birthday

By Washington Post
Posted on 10/02/22 | News Source: Washington Post

Former president Jimmy Carter is celebrating his 98th birthday Saturday by seeing family members and taking calls in his modest living room in Plains, Ga., the small town where he began his improbable campaign for the nation’s highest office nearly half a century ago.

“Friends are calling, and family are around,” Jill Stuckey, the superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park and a family friend, said after visiting the former president Saturday morning. “He is remarkable.”

Carter, who left the White House in 1981 after one term, has lived longer than any other U.S. president.

He and his wife, Rosalynn, 95, greeted well-wishers in public last weekend during the annual Peanut Festival in Plains. A Secret Service agent drove the Carters around in a red convertible. The Carter family still owns farmland where peanuts grow.

“It was a gorgeous day. Everything came together,” said Stuckey, describing the event with the Carters’ children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren walking behind the car. “Some people’s jaws dropped when they saw them. People were clapping and some had tears.”