In 1976, Alice Weaver was in fourth grade at Beverly Hills Elementary School in Concord when a somewhat unknown presidential hopeful from Georgia made his way to town.

“It was like, ‘Jimmy who?’ ” Weaver said. “No one knew who he was at the time.”

By 1977, he was in the White House and kept a promise that Weaver’s class would never forget. Weaver and others shared their recollections of Jimmy Carter Monday with The Charlotte Observer, a day after the former president died at his home in Georgia at age 100.

Carter came to the annual Pancake Day hosted by Boys and Girls Club of Cabarrus County alongside congressional hopeful Bill Hefner. Students from the nearby elementary school were attending since they were learning about the electoral process.

Both candidates were long shots, said Max Harris, the then-principal of Beverly Hills. “Jimmy was the wrong party for Beverly Hills at that time,” Harris told the Observer. “Most of the parents were Republicans.”

As students gathered down the street from the event at a nearby Catholic church, they caught Carter’s eye.

“He asked what the group was, and when he heard it was a group of elementary school students, he came straight over to talk to us,” Weaver said. “He met with us and was so generous and kind.”

Then, he made an offer none of them would forget.

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

When Carter eventually was elected — and garnering 56% of the vote in North Carolina — Harris jump-started a community effort to get the kids to Washington, D.C.

‘Some things are bigger than politics’

Harris reached out to a reporter at Concord’s Independent Tribune to see if Carter’s press secretary, Jody Powell, could ask the president to make it happen.

“(Powell) asked the president if he remembered meeting students in Concord on the campaign trail and if he remembered inviting them to the White House. And he said he sure did,” Harris said. “From that point, President Carter directed the Secret Service to do whatever was necessary to get the students to the White House.”

The Beverly Hills Elementary community began raising funds to get 68 students and 13 adults plane tickets to Washington.

Since a large portion of the student body came from low-income households and lived in government housing, Harris said no parents were allowed to pay their child’s way. Instead, students would help raise money by selling tickets to a chicken noodle dinner and an auction.

Behind the scenes, a local business owner offered to buy any extra tickets that students were unable to sell so every student would have the opportunity to go.

“Everybody got behind this regardless of party,” Harris said. “Some things are more important than politics.”

The total cost for the group to fly to Washington, D.C. was $7,134.62 – around $65 per student.

Meeting in the Rose Garden

They set out to meet the president on April 4, 1977. Most of the students had never flown on an airplane before and were nervous, to put it lightly. The day started with a lot of tears at the Charlotte airport.

“They were a crying crowd, to tell you the truth,” Harris said.

Once they arrived in D.C., though, it was nothing but excitement. Carter had enlisted the Secret Service to escort the group around the city to various memorials and historic sites. They also got access to parts of the White House tours didn’t typically get to see, since they had a special security detail.

“They would never be able to clear that many people and do that today,” Harris said. “It’s one of those things that could never be repeated.”

And they got to meet Carter in the White House Rose Garden, where they watched him sign an energy bill into law.

“Looking back, it’s just unreal,” Weaver said. “It didn’t hit me as a child.”

She doesn’t remember what Carter said that day, but she does remember how he made them all feel. “He was so gracious with his time and spoke to all of us,” she said. “He was just so friendly and welcoming to all of us.”

Harris is now 91 and still lives in Concord.

“I loved that experience more than anything that’s ever happened to me because it was so unique,” he said.

Jimmy Carter in Charlotte

Carter would go on to make his mark on not only the nation and the world but also on the Charlotte area.

In 1987, he and his wife Rosalynn came to Charlotte to help jump-start Habitat for Humanity’s mission by working alongside 300 volunteers to build 14 homes.

“It is not an accident that we chose to come to Charlotte,” Carter said at the time. “There are 205 communities in the country with Habitat projects. We could have gone to any of them, but Charlotte, for us, is special.”

In 2023, the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project returned to Charlotte, where over 1,000 volunteers built 27 family homes.

Harris says he believes Carter will be remembered as much for his humanitarian work after his presidency as for his presidency itself.

“His work over the last 50 years will be remembered,” Harris said. “He was there to support groups who were ostracized or had limited freedoms all over the world.”

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