President Jimmy Carter, Wife to Host Event in Annapolis

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn Carter will spend five days in Annapolis next month as the hosts of a Carter Center Weekend.

The Carter Center’s website says the couple will host the event set for June 22–26 at the Westin Annapolis Hotel.

Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946.

The Nobel Prize laureate, praised for his work with causes such as Habitat for Humanity and campaigning for peaceful and democratic elections around the world, has successfully beaten cancer in the past year.

Carter, 91, was diagnosed with cancer in August 2015 after having surgery to remove a lesion on his liver. After having the surgery, Carter said doctors had found melanoma lesions on his brain. In December Carter said that he was cancer free, and in March 2016 he revealed that he no longer needs to be treated for the disease.

Here’s how the center describes the Annapolis weekend:

Join President and Mrs. Carter for five, fun-filled and informative days in Annapolis, Maryland, where you can learn more about the vision and work of The Carter Center.

Carter Center Weekend features live and silent auctions of unique items and Carter memorabilia, program updates from Carter Center staff, group excursions and activities, and interaction with the Center's founders — former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.

There will be something for everyone. Special features this year include:

• Town hall meeting with President and Mrs. Carter
• Visit to the U.S. Naval Academy
• Dinner on the Eastern Shore
• Briefings on Carter Center programs
• Review of Carter-Mondale administration initiatives

Carter served as the 39th president, from 1977 to 1981, and has been referred to, even among many of his detractors, as perhaps the most publicly active U.S. president in history.

In 1984, he started the Carter Center to advance human rights worldwide, focused, as its website points out, on resolving violent conflicts, advancing democracy and human rights, preventing diseases, and improving mental health care.”

Carter has traveled worldwide negotiating peace deals and overseeing elections.

Along with his wife, Rosalynn, he is heavily involved in Habitat For Humanity. For one week a year, the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project builds and improves homes while raising awareness for affordable housing.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

As president, Carter is most well-known for pardoning Vietnam War draft evaders and his negotiation of the Iran hostage crisis, where 52 U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

A mission by Carter to rescue the hostages resulted in the death of eight U.S. soldiers and an Iranian civilian. The hostages were eventually released just minutes after Ronald Reagan took office.

Carter is the second-oldest living president, behind George H.W. Bush.

»Patch file photo of President Jimmy Carter