After almost two years in hospice care, former President Jimmy Carter died Sunday at the age of 100.

I was born when Richard Nixon was in the White House. My first vote was a choice between George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton. The first time I really paid attention to the candidates was in eighth grade, when the options were Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.

But I was 5 when Carter was elected. The first time I really heard the word “president,” it referenced a peanut farmer from Georgia.

Twenty-six years later, I met him. He was no longer the “leader of the free world.” He was a man in his late 70s taking time out from vacation for some fundraising. Not political fundraising. It was an event supporting cancer research.

It was in 2002 at a sold-out Rowland Theatre in Philipsburg. Businessman and musician Chuck Navasky had started a cancer charity after his own throat cancer diagnosis. He marshaled friends he had made in the industry for first a band, then a CD and then a star-studded concert.

Carter had enjoyed fly fishing in Centre County for years. He even wrote about his Spruce Creek adventures for Fly Fisherman magazine.

He also had been touched by cancer so often. His father, two sisters and brother all died of pancreatic cancer. He lost his mother when breast cancer metastasized to her bones. When asked to attend the concert, he did.

The Rowland is an historic opera house built in 1917 to host both live theater and the then-newfangled medium of film. It is stately, comparable in size to the Ambassador Theater on Broadway where “Chicago” is staged. It has a spacious balcony that was filled with wide, comfortable seats.

In the center of the front row of the balcony, above elegantly draped red, white and blue bunting, Carter and wife, Rosalynn, took in the performance. The bunting hung there for years — a regular reminder of the honor paid to the theater.

The former president spoke about the terrible losses of cancer and supported the artists.

They did not stay all night. It was a long event, and it was an eclectic blend that ran the gamut from Tony Orlando to Slaughter.

When Carter came down the curving staircase with his detail, I was waiting at the bottom with a steno notebook and a pen.

I don’t have the notes anymore — and 22 years later, I probably couldn’t read my handwriting anyway. It was not a groundbreaking interview at any rate.

But the words he said are now less important than the fact that he said them.

Over the course of my career, I have been brushed aside and ignored by many a politician. Often the less power they wield, the more jealous of it they are. A former state representative passive aggressively introduced himself to me like it was our first meeting at every event. We shared two sides of the same tiny storefront office and I took his picture at least twice a week.

But Carter took the time to talk to me when I asked. He answered questions, walked with me outside, shook my hand and apologized that he couldn’t spend more time talking.

Rosalynn Carter died in November 2023. The last time most people saw the former president was when he was brought to her funeral in a wheelchair. The ensuing months have been a long, slow vigil that lasted longer than many expected. Carter was in hospice care since February 2023.

He wasn’t the first president I met. He wasn’t the last.

But he was the first who left me with the sense I had been heard.

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