Despite his Georgia roots, former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday in his hometown in Georgia, had closer ties to Lewiston and Auburn than most would expect from a former peanut farmer.

Former President Jimmy Carter, right, embraces his secretary of state, Edmund Muskie, during the 1985 dedication of the Muskie Archives at Bates College in Lewiston. Bates College photo

He visited the twin cities on a handful of occasions, speaking at least twice at Bates College and scrounging for votes in Auburn during his long-shot presidential campaign in 1975.

At the Holiday Inn in Auburn that long-ago December, Carter told a small crowd the country was drifting “in the absence of leadership from the president” and called for someone in the White House who could “inspire the American people to reach for greatness.”

At Bates that same day, Carter pledged to several  hundred students and resident that he would “never tell a lie, never make a misleading statement, never betray your confidence and never avoid a controversial issue.”

Rosalynn Carter, the former president’s wife who died last November, spent even more time in the area in the months leading up to the Maine presidential caucus in 1976, including a couple of overnight stays in Auburn with supporters of her husband and a tea at a Chamberlain Avenue home in Lewiston.

Carter, largely unknown to most of the country, wound up winning more delegates in Maine than all the other Democratic contenders combined, providing him with a boost that helped him win the New Hampshire primary a few weeks later and then his party’s nomination in 1976.

One of the people who met Carter on that trip, former state Rep. James Handy of Lewiston, told the oral history project at the Muskie Archives at Bates College that the former president “probably more influence on me than any other politician.”

“His commitment to other people to me was what I wanted to do,” Handy said. “He really illustrated to me that you can be successful, and your success can be measured in what you do for others and putting other people before yourself.”

Handy said that Carter’s commitment to human rights, both internationally and in his own country, exemplified his ethics and helped make him “very inspirational.”

Carter defeated incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in November 1976. In the final year of his one-term presidency, he appointed former U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine to serve as his secretary of state, cementing a special tie between the president and the Pine Tree State.

When Carter sought a second term, he spent a couple of evenings making phone calls to ordinary people across Maine who were working on his campaign.

One of them, Cecilia Treworgy, who taught home economics at Lewiston High School at the time, picked up the phone one night in February 1980 to find Carter on the other end of the line.

“I was so taken aback I couldn’t think of anything to say,” Treworgy recalled recently.

But Carter lost his reelection bid to Republican Ronald Reagan that year.

“I felt very sad when he didn’t win,” Treworgy said.

She called him “a very decent man.”

After his defeat, Carter began a new career as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and promoter of peace in troubled areas worldwide.

Just days after Hurricane Gloria slammed New England in September 1985, Carter flew to Lewiston for the dedication of the Muskie Archives at Bates.

A college professor, Carl Straub, said at the time: “There is more than the Appalachian Trail which binds Maine to Georgia. There is a common heritage which rises from the simple decency of our people: We share a sense of what is good and just and beautiful.

“We share gratitude for the common leadership given us by Jimmy Carter. On this festive occasion when we honor a son of Maine and of Bates, we pause to thank this son of Georgia. “

“His journey has been one of human adventure,” Straub said as the college conferred an honorary doctorate on the former president. “When he reached his highest office, he did not forget the lessons from that journey, for they taught him what is important to the American people.”

Carter and Muskie, a former governor from Rumford and a 1936 Bates graduate, were friends.

Awarding Muskie the Medal of Freedom in 1981, Carter said he had admired Muskie “ever since I’ve been aware of his public service and been interested myself in going into the political arena.”

Carter appreciated the Mainer’s “quiet sense of inner strength and demonstrated courage.”

He said that Muskie “has never yielded to temptation to lower his own standards or the standards which make all public servants proud” and despite being “a loyal Democrat,” his service transcended party.

In addition to Muskie, the former president also had close ties to another Bates graduate, civil rights leader Benjamin Mays, a leader in the class of 1920 who would later mentor Martin Luther King Jr.

During his 1985 speech at Bates, Carter thanked the college “for making it possible for Dr. Benjamin Mays to overcome the handicaps of white supremacy and racism and to take his place among the prominent leaders of our nation and the world.”

The address at Bates also touched on some of the recurrent themes of Carter’s public life, including his insistence a country should be measured by its commitment to human rights.

“In order to be truly great, we must use our power for the enhancement of peace for ourselves and for others,” he said. “This includes forgoing belligerence and force wherever possible and relying wherever possible on diplomacy.”