Judy Woodruff, the longtime anchor for PBS NewsHour, recalls her first time covering Carter during his 1970 gubernatorial election campaign in Georgia.
It was a campaign that "put [Carter] on the map as a progressive southern governor," Woodruff tells NPR's Andrew Limbong on All Things Considered.
Did he strike her as someone who would one day become president of the United States?
"No way. But he exceeded expectations at every turn."
Then came his bid for the White House in 1976. It was a time when the mood in the country was bitter and cynical about politicians in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate.
Carter, the modest peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., struck a different tone.
"[Carter] came to believe he could be as good a president, if not a better president, than anyone else on the horizon," Woodruff says.
The press in Washington, however, was less sure about him.
"I think there was a great tendency on the part of many reporters to look down…to have that typical attitude that that man in the north has toward those in the south," Woodruff says. "Carter was determined to prove them wrong."
If he didn't do that during his presidency, Woodruff believes he certainly did so in the four decades after he left office.
"I watched him almost will his way to make a difference in this world," Woodruff says, referring to his work with the Carter Center in Atlanta, years spent building homes with Habitat for Humanity, and additional humanitarian work culminating in the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize Award.
Those years, Woodruff says, are the ones she will remember most.
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