PIKE COUNTY, Mo. — The following previously-published story by contributing writer Brent Engel is presented in remembrance of President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at 100 on Dec. 29.

He waved to folks in Louisiana and spent 57 minutes in Clarksville.

But it had been more than seven decades since the top office holder in the land had visited Pike County, so every moment was magical.

On Thursday, Aug. 23, 1979, Democrat President Jimmy Carter arrived aboard the Delta Queen riverboat.

It was the next-to-last day of a trip that had started Aug. 17 in Minneapolis. The previous visit by a president had been Republican Teddy Roosevelt on April 29, 1903.

Up to 2,000 people crowded the Louisiana riverfront as the Queen passed under the Champ Clark Bridge just before 6 p.m. Some people had waited six hours for Carter, First Lady Rosalyn Carter and their 11-year-old daughter, Amy. The president addressed onlookers from the upper deck of the vessel, but it did not dock.

“Hello, Louisiana,” the president said. “Thank you for coming out to see us.”

Louisiana Mayor Tom Wallace, his wife, Lona, and Leone Cadwallader were among the local organizers.

“Everyone kept saying that he wouldn’t stop here,” Cadwallader told the Louisiana Press-Journal. “But we wanted to have everything ready just in case.”

The Queen arrived in Clarksville just after 7 p.m., where a crowd estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 was waiting.

“Pike County was ready for the President’s visit with a host of gifts, banners, waving arms and well-wishers,” the Bowling Green Times said.

The Secret Service arrived a half-hour before the Queen went through Lock and Dam 24. The President spent 15 minutes on the telephone in the lock office before giving a 10-minute speech on the national energy crisis. Lockmaster Dan Buckley called the proceedings “organized confusion.”

“Carter was trying to keep it as informal as possible,” Buckley told newspapers. “You couldn’t plan on anything.”

Clarksville Mayor Helen Barron and Bowling Green attorney James Millan greeted the entourage, and the Clopton High School band under the direction of Tom Cotton was ready with patriotic tunes.

Barron said it was “hard for me to think of this happening in a little town like Clarksville. It’s the greatest thrill of my life to welcome the first family to my hometown.”

Lewis Kent of Clarksville built a red-carpeted ramp that drew raves from the White House staff. Gifts included peaches from Stark Brothers Nurseries in Louisiana and a 10-pound slab of bacon from Woods Smoked Meats of Bowling Green. A Secret Service agent accidentally cut a leg while examining the bacon. In true form, he didn’t flinch.

Carter was visibly appreciative of other gifts as he and his family walked along the receiving line. The long day ended with Carter’s midnight jog at Lock and Dam 25 in Winfield.

The journey down the Mississippi River came at a critical time. The nation was in a deep recession, there were long lines at gasoline pumps, interest rates were high and in less than three months radicals in Iran would seize the American embassy.

Just five weeks earlier, Carter had given what became known as his “Crisis of Confidence” speech. In it, he addressed the sluggish economy and bloated federal bureaucracy, urging Americans to be more positive and self-assured. He also called for reducing oil imports and funding alternative energy.

Response initially was good, but then a shakeup in Carter’s cabinet occurred. The public questioned whether the man who had brokered a Mideast peace agreement a year earlier could effectively lead the country.

While some saw the Delta Queen trip as a political junket for the president’s 1980 re-election bid and others viewed it as an escape from the country’s troubles, most of the thousands who turned out to see him did not care about motive.

It was true that Carter was visiting largely friendly territory. In 1976, he had won three of the five states — including Missouri — the Delta Queen would pass through.

Carter beat Republican Gerald Ford, who had taken office after the resignation of President Richard Nixon, by just 73 votes in Pike County that year. On the trip, Carter touted his efforts to reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, part of what he called a “comprehensive energy policy.” Critics read that as “higher fuel taxes.”

A week later, the Democrat was dealing with stories about a swamp rabbit that swam menacingly toward his boat during a Georgia fishing trip the previous April. The tale became “killer rabbit” fodder for the media and Carter opponents.

In the 1980 election, Carter was trounced nationally by Republican Ronald Reagan, whose margin of victory in Pike County was 478 votes. Still, residents would never forget Carter’s visit.

“It isn’t every day that the President of the United States makes a stop in Pike County, Missouri,” the Times pointed out.