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Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn were about to depart Ban Righ Hall when the 39th President of the United States motioned me over.

“Art,” he said, “there is something I want you to have.”

He then reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper.

“This is for you.”

President Carter gave me the original copy of his Grant Hall convocation speech he had used earlier that day while at the ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s podium. It was filled with his handwritten edits. With particular pride as a Canadian, I saw the comments he had written into his speech praising Canada’s role in 1979-80 when six American diplomats found safety and shelter in the home of our nation’s ambassador to Iran.  

Carter then hugged my wife, as did Rosalynn Carter. Then their motorcade left campus for the airport so they could begin their journey home to Georgia.

So ended the events of Nov. 21, 2012, the day ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s hosted, for only the second time in its history, one of the 46 men who had served as president of the great republic to the south of us. Decades earlier, of course, Franklin Roosevelt had honoured the university by also delivering a convocation address to the ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s community.

Carter’s trip to ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s had been more than a year in the making. The seeds were planted in Plains, Georgia, the tiny southern community the Carters called home, in 2011. I was involved in ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s at the time as a Fellow of the School of Policy Studies, led by Dr. Thomas Axworthy.

Tom, Pierre Trudeau’s principal secretary, had had many encounters with President Carter when the latter was in the White House. The two of us, joined by University Archivist Paul Banfield, decided to prepare a uniquely Canadian book honouring both Carters, simply called Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute. When I told the former president of our plans, he immediately offered to write the foreword to the volume. He then took his involvement a step further, telling us he’d happily and personally launch our book at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in his hometown.

It took me a millisecond to agree.

Soon, Principal Daniel Woolf, myself, and leading members of the campus community like Banfield and ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s politics professor Jonathan Rose, amongst others, were heading to Georgia for the book launch. It was in Plains that Principal Woolf conceived of the idea of honouring the Carters with honorary degrees.

When I ferried the request to President Carter, he agreed and had only one request: He wanted Canada’s former Ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, and the latter’s wife Pat, along with Flora MacDonald, to be invited. All three had played crucial roles ensuring the escape from revolutionary Iran of the six American diplomats who had avoided capture by Iranian militants when their embassy was taken over in 1979.

For my wife, Alison Bogle, and me, the visit would be particularly special. President and Mrs. Carter accepted our invitation to stay overnight with us. They also agreed to plant ceremonial trees in our garden as a permanent reminder of their trip to Kingston and ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s.

At Grant Hall on Nov. 21, 2012, both Carters delivered inspirational speeches before a graduating class, as did Principal Woolf in his remarks introducing the distinguished couple. Chancellor David Dodge sported a Carter-like smile the entire day.

When the Carters returned home, they wrote Alison and me. “It was a great honour for us to be recognized by ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s University, especially in the presence of Ken and Pat Taylor and Flora MacDonald, our special heroes,” they wrote. “We realize, Art, that you made the entire visit possible.”

Since it was revealed that Jimmy Carter was on his final journey, I have thought a great deal about that day on campus more than a decade ago. And I think today, as I did then, how privileged my wife and I, now joined by the entire ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s community, are to be able to call the president-peacemaker, and his first lady, our friends.

Kingston’s Arthur Milnes (Arts ’88), is the author of 98 Reasons to Thank Jimmy Carter and the editor of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute, the latter published by the ����91���︣�����߹ۿ�’s School of Policy Studies. Arthur was a speechwriter to then Prime Minister Stephen Harper and also served as the memoirs’ assistant to the Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney.