A vast choir of about 1,100 students gathered Tuesday, Oct. 1, at St. Genevieve Parish Schools in the San Fernando Valley to record a birthday greeting video for former President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100.
The Panorama City school celebrated the birthday of the longest-living president in U.S. history and a Nobel Peace Prize winner who visited the school on three occasions accompanied by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
“Because of our relationship with the Carters, we are part of history,” said school Principal Dan Horn. “Today is a historical day. He’s the first president to reach 100 years old.”
Horn has been in touch with the family of the 39th president, who entered home hospice care in February last year. A small group of family members, Horn added, celebrated Carter’s birthday in person on Tuesday.
“He is very delicate,” he said. “It’s the gatherings with his family (and) the Atlanta Braves, that keep him going — and politics.”
Horn and his students recently returned from Plains, Georgia, Carter’s hometown, where the school took part in celebrating the birthday of Rosalynn Carter who passed away in November 2023.
“All the choir kids had never been there before, so they got to (see) not only Plains but got to meet a lot of Rosalynn’s relatives,” he said.
It’s been a long tradition for students at St. Genevieve Parish Schools to celebrate Jimmy Carter’s birthday, especially after making close ties with the former president and first lady.
Last September, a preschool, elementary school and high school celebrated the former president’s 99th birthday. More than 1,100 students of all ages gathered to sing a song and congratulate Carter.
Back in 2005, students from Genevieve High School got a glimpse into the lives of the Carters when the former president and Rosalynn welcomed them to their hometown of Plains.
Later, a group of students accompanied by a teacher and the principal traveled to Plains to attend Carter’s Sunday school lesson. As she stood in the pew with the students, Rosalynn introduced the group as “my friends from California.”
When Carter visited their school in 2010 while on tour to promote his new book, “White House Diary,” the former president asked: “Can anybody guess what is my favorite high school in America?”
The couple returned to St. Genevieve Parish Schools again in 2013 for a special event that included unveiling “the Carter Wall,” which documented the special relationship the school had established with the Carters.
Sean See, who now works for the school, was one of several students who produced the documentary “Dear Rosalynn” and interviewed the former first lady in person. The Carters joined the students at the Rose Bowl in 2018 to watch the film.
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“We had been working on that documentary for little more than a decade,” See said. “It’s fascinating in the sense that everyone had a hand in it in terms of footage, in terms of interviewing them. I was the one who put that all together.”
On Tuesday, student Karen Gallardo-Garcia said, “We are honored to be friends of former President Jimmy Carter and hope that this relationship can last for many more years to come.”
In August, Gallardo-Garcia accompanied the school choir on a trip to the couple’s hometown. “The town is one giant family and we are honored to be part of that family,” she said.
Principal Horn intends to send a birthday video recorded on Oct. 1 to Carter’s pastor, who will then share it with the former president.
“Never before in history has there been a relationship between a president and a school that he did not attend that goes as deep and as intimate as this one,” Horn said. “And so it just feels special.”
