I was in Washington, D.C., in January 2025 for a business conference when I became an incidental witness to the history of President James E. Carter, Jr. for the second time in my life.
Of the 45 men who have been President of the United States in the nearly 236-year history of our nation, and of the 11 men who have been President in my lifetime, I have personally seen six.
Living in the state of Iowa has afforded its citizens an opportunity to get up close and personal with would-be presidential candidates, party nominees, and incumbents running for re-election. That “First in the Nation” status was due to the 1976 candidacy of a former Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter, and his meteoric rise to the presidency propelled by his success in the Iowa Caucus.
Pictured: President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn (sic) made a stop in Dubuque on Aug. 20, 1979 during a trip along the Mississippi River aboard the Delta Queen. – From Dubuque Telegraph-Herald Archives
On August 20, 1979, President Carter and his wife Rosalynn were vacationing in the Upper Mississippi River Valley aboard the steamboat Delta Queen. Carter made a public appearance in Dubuque on that sunny day at the Hawthorne Street marina. Disembarking from the Delta Queen to a large crowd eager to see the leader of the free world, the President and Mrs. Carter made there way to a podium where the President spoke before the enthusiastic crowd. After thanking the crowd, Carter descended from the podium to shake hands with those fortunate enough to make there way to the front of the retaining tape separating the President from the mass of people. Along that front line were a young John and James Pregler, who reached out their eleven- and nine-year-old-hands and shook the hand of the man from Plains, Georgia. That was the first time I saw a man who was or would be President of the United States.
Pictured: Caisson process carrying the body of the 39th President of the United States, James E. Carter, Jr. along Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., on January 7, 2025. – By John T. Pregler
Pictured: President Jimmy Carter lying in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capital. – By Aaron Troutman/U.S. Army
Since first seeing President Carter, I have seen Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden in person. The last time I was in the presence of a President occurred in January 2025. Coming full circle, I was in our nation’s capital on January 7 and was fortunate to witness the transfer of the 39th President’s body onto a horse-drawn caisson in front of the U.S. Navy Memorial for his honorary procession along Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capital, where President Carter lay in state until his funeral on January 9. Joined by my brother Bob and tens of thousands of our fellow citizens on January 8, we paid our last regards to one of the world’s great humanitarians in the rotunda of the U.S. Capital before his ultimate return to the soil of his native Plains, Georgia. Godspeed, Jimmy Carter. You were a good and decent man.