Charlotte Man Looks Back On Friendship With Rosalynn & Jimmy Carter

CHARLOTTE, N.C. –  “What you see is what you get with Rosalynn Carter. She’s not flashy. She’s very real, very genuine, extremely smart,” says friend Bob Wilson.

Wilson calls Rosalynn an incredible lady, who was an inspiration.

“She’s got a lot of southern charm and the type of person that if you’re if you’re at her home, she’s going to make you feel very, very welcome,” he says.

Wilson met the former President and First Lady in 1987, when he served as director for the Carter Project for Habitat for Humanity.

The President and Mrs. Carter led 235 volunteers in the hot, sweltering summer heat, constructing 14 homes in Charlotte’s Optimist Park neighborhood.

The Carter’s, like other volunteers, spent the night in un-airconditioned residence halls at Queens University.

“This was the first time that a former chief of state of the United States had taken time to go out and work with just folks like like my wife, me,” Wilson says.

After that, Wilson went on to serve as National Director for the Carter Project for another six years, developing a friendship with the Carters, around fly fishing.

“We fished together every year since about well, I guess for the last 25 years or so, at least twice a year,” Wilson says.

He says it’s true, that the Carter’s remained down to earth, humble people, despite their time in the White House.

“Very much a man of the people. He doesn’t have any airs about being a former President,” Wilson says, “…and it took me a long time as a former military person to call President Carter by his first name… but
finally I got the nerve to call him Jimmy. That’s what he had asked me to do.”

Wilson believes history will remember the Carter’s favorably because of their work after leaving the White House, with Habitat and other organizations.

“They’re very engaging, very real, very genuine human beings. And it’s been a real pleasure of my life to get to know them,” Wilson says.