Jimmy Carter Kisses Wife To Ring In New Year In Georgia

PLAINS, GA — Former President Jimmy Carter rang in the new year with a kiss. The 96-year-old and his first lady Rosalynn Carter were pictured sharing a smooch to celebrate the start of 2021 in his hometown of Plains.

The photo was taken by Jill Stuckey, who said she took the picture of the couple sharing a kiss in a vehicle in her driveway at her annual peanut drop.

"It's Plains! We do everything with [peanuts]!!" she told Patch of the tradition.

Georgia leads the nation in peanut production, producing more than 40 percent of the peanuts in the United States. Carter, a Democrat who was elected president in 1976, came from a family of peanut farmers.

The cardboard cutout of a peanut has been dropped by the city and at her home over the years, Stuckey said. Rita Thompson, a longtime friend of the Carters, made it, she added.

"It has blue lights because GA is BLUE now!!" Stuckey told Patch.

As Carter and his wife watched the peanut drop, Rosalynn Carter pulled down her mask for the kiss, which Stuckey captured at 8:01 p.m. Thursday, "because we can't stay up" until midnight, she said.

"That was their New Year's kiss," Stuckey wrote on Facebook. "If that doesn’t make your New Year start out right, nothing will!"

The Carters wed July 7, 1946, and are the longest married presidential couple in U.S. history.

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