ATLANTA — Before being elected president, Jimmy Carter was a state senator and Georgia governor from 1971 to 1975.
One of the state troopers who guarded and drove Carter during his four years as governor, Myron Freemen, remembers Carter as a tenacious, progressive leader who was determined to improve the way government worked -- especially for those in need.
“The energy crisis had hit, and he downsized from a Chevy Caprice to a Chevy Nova,” Freeman said.
[PHOTO: Jimmy Carter through the years]
The Nova didn’t have as much legroom as the governor’s previous, but Freeman said he quickly learned Carter was less concerned with comfort than with saving gasoline.
Like the time a car raced past the gubernatorial nova on Interstate 75.
“He said, ‘Pull him over. Pull him over.’ So we pulled him over. He jumped out, ran up, walked up to the car, and he chewed that guy out. ‘Don’t you know that the speed limit is 55-miles-an-hour’ and yada, yada, yada, and ‘Why are you driving so fast?” Freeman said. “(The driver) apologized and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ But he was surprised to see it was the governor.”
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Freeman said Carter was at his desk in the Capitol by 7 a.m. He worked while the trooper drove, so there was little small talk.
Freeman said he saw the engineer’s love of precision for which Carter is well known. He wanted everything to work like it was supposed to work.
“Once he made his mind up to do something, he was very tenacious. And even though he smiled a lot … is that the same as hard-headed? Tenacious?” Freeman said.
Freeman recalls Carter’s reorganization of hundreds of state agencies and his efforts to make government work for everyday Georgians.
[PHOTOS: The inauguration of President Jimmy Carter]
“He used to have People’s Day here at the Capitol because people didn’t know where to go for their services. So he called all the department heads in or had some representative here to help solve their problems,” Freeman said.
When Carter announced he would begin the campaign that led him to the White House, Freeman said he wasn’t surprised because of the travel the governor was already doing.
“I could tell then -- when we went from Atlanta to DC, to Massachusetts, to New York, then back to Georgia and back in the governor’s office on Monday morning. Yes, I knew it,” Freeman said.
[PHOTOS: Dedication of the Carter Center and Presidential Library]
We asked freeman how he’d like Georgians to remember Carter.
“He wanted everyone to be treated fairly. He wanted everyone to have -- all people -- to have a place at the table,” Freeman said.
Freeman later served eight years on the personal detail of Gov. George Busbee and eventually became the No. 2 officer in the Georgia State Patrol, and then went on to become Sheriff of Fulton County.
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