On the recordDecember 5, 2023
I thank my friend from Georgia for yielding the time and for setting up this time to honor the life of Rosalynn Carter. I am a native Georgian. I grew up in Georgia. The town I grew up in is represented by my good friend Mr. Scott. Where I live now is in north Georgia, in the northern part of the State, and right behind my house as a cemetery where the graves date back to before the Civil War. There are some even as far back as the late 1700s. I like to walk through that cemetery and think about the history that is there. As you go to each one of the tombstones there, in most cases, you have a birth date and a date of death, but in between those are the dash. As I tell my children, it is not the date you were born that matters nor the date that you die, but it is what you did in that dash that matters. The Carters have left an impact on the State of Georgia that has personally impacted me. I remember as Jimmy Carter was the 76th Governor of Georgia and Rosalynn was the First Lady. As has been said here, she was a champion of mental health issues. I was a young Cub Scout who actually was on a field trip to visit the Governor's mansion in the State of Georgia in the early 1970s. As a young Cub Scout, I still remember today walking up the steps of the Governor's mansion, and I was met at the front door by Governor Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter.…
