How local students got to visit Jimmy Carter at the White House in the 1970s

CONCORD, N.C. — Tributes are pouring in across the country honoring the life and legacy of former President Jimmy Carter.

The 39th president of the United States died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia.

At 100 years old, he was the longest-living president in U.S. history.

Former President Jimmy Carter death: State funeral scheduled for Jan. 9

President Joe Biden ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff for a month.

He also set Jan. 9 as a National Day of Mourning. A funeral will be held at the National Cathedral in Washington on that day.

Carter was a man of principle, which led to a group of Concord students visiting him in 1977 at the White House.

Channel 9 tagged along for that trip nearly 50 years ago and on Monday, reporter Erika Jackson met up with two people who were there to learn how it came to be.

Alice Weaver has newspaper clippings and video clips to remember one of the best days of her childhood.

“There’s me peeking my head out next to President Carter. Wow! That is in the Rose Garden,” said Weaver, a former student at Beverly Hills Elementary School.

Before becoming President Jimmy Carter, Weaver knew him as candidate Jimmy Carter.

She remembered meeting the Democratic presidential candidate during a school trip to the Cabarrus County Boys Club pancake dinner in 1976.

“He said, ‘If I’m elected president, I want you all to come visit me in the White House,’” Weaver said.

One year later, Weaver and her fifth-grade classmates learned Carter was a man of his word.

Sixty-eight students raised nearly $9,000 to pay for their flights to Washington.

Thirteen adults, including former Beverly Hills Elementary School Principal Max Harris, chaperoned the visit.

“I love that experience more than anything that’s ever happened because it was so unique,” Harris said.

Channel 9 was the only local station there to document the trip.

“They fired questions at him and asked him things, and he was so patient, handled them, shook their hand, shook my hand, walked straight to me, and talked to me just like somebody I’d known for years,” Harris said.

Carter praised the students for their dedication.

“These young people, some that I met during my campaign for president, I underestimated them,” Carter had said. “I told them, at the time, I’d like them to come visit me in the White House if I got elected. I didn’t think they’d be so dedicated and so strong and innovative to come all the way to Washington to see me.”

Weaver believes the impact of Carter’s community service lasted decades after his four years in the Oval Office.

“I think his legacy will live on in being a kind, generous, loving man who had compassion, but yet had a tough side to him as well,” Weaver said. “And I think he will be remembered as a humanitarian.”

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