A giant peanut, symbol of the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter

(Plains) Four meters tall, a cream-brown color and a huge, dazzling, slightly unsettling smile: In Plains, in the southeastern United States, a giant peanut statue has become the symbol of the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter, attracting busloads of tourists every year.

“He watches over us in a way, I think, that broad smile,” said Debra Liscotti, who lives for a few months each year in the motorhome park located just behind the statue.

The figure, made of polyurethane foam and fine wire mesh, was installed in Plains after a rally in Indiana (northern United States), during the victorious campaign of Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election .

With a smile modeled on that of the former Democratic president, the peanut also references the farming past of Jimmy Carter, who once grew peanuts in Plains, having grown up in this Georgia village in there. plowing the land, before accessing the White House from 1977 to 1981.

Now 98, Jimmy Carter is now in palliative care at home, his foundation announced on February 18.

Since then, the ballet of cars and tourist buses has only increased, residents of the motorhome park behind the peanut noticed.

Visitors have already begun to place a few bouquets of flowers – albeit prematurely – at the foot of the sculpture, which has taken on the air of a memorial in the making.

The peanut has also had a makeover recently: a new coat of paint was applied to it on Sunday.

Peanut spin

Donna Peacock, a Texas native, has been a couple at the RV park since January, working as a seasonal volunteer at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Park, which includes some buildings across the village, like the ex’s childhood home. -president and his high school.

The motorhome park, says the 59-year-old retired professor, consists of a hodgepodge of residents, present in Plains for different reasons, with only a few occupants year-round.

And the peanut has become a useful marker for those visiting the park for the first time.

“We were trying to find the camp and they explained to us ‘when you see the big peanut, you turn there'”, explains Donna Peacock.

Debra Liscotti, who resides in the Plains motorhome park when she comes to visit her uncle, abounds on the peanut: “It cannot be confused” with another, she assures.

Coming from Iowa, in the central United States, with her family and her dog, Elise Maxson explains that the smiling statue of Jimmy Carter is “nice”.

“But he’s an exemplary man, and I don’t think that can be summed up in a peanut,” says the tourist from her car.

For Donna Peacock, who may have met Jimmy Carter at a Christmas event a few years ago when he was in better health, the peanut is “perhaps a bit of an exaggeration”.

“But I understand why they did it with their teeth, because he smiles all the time. All the time,” she insists of the former president.