OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — This week, many remember former president Jimmy Carter and his influence on the country- an influence that reached directly to Oshkosh.
- Jimmy Carter visited the EAA Museum in Oshkosh in April 1987.
- Carter was flown into Oshkosh to speak at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
- Carter visited a few other cities in Wisconsin during his long life, including Manitowoc and Green Bay.
In April of 1987, Paul Poberezny flew former president Jimmy Carter from Georgia to Oshkosh, since there were no first class airlines coming to Oshkosh at that time.
Poberezny asked Carter, who is a navy veteran, if he wanted to visit the museum, and the former president agreed, according to director of communications at EAA, Dick Knapinski.
“It's interesting how EAA has been a part of history in so many different ways,” Knapinski says.
The museum was three years old at the time, and according to Knapinski, Carter was impressed with the display.
Within two years of Carter's visit, president George H. W. Bush also visited the museum.
Carter came to Oshkosh to speak at the UWO campus.
His impacts on the university didn’t end there.
The Carter Center, which supports humanitarian, pro-democracy and other projects across the globe, was founded by Jimmy Carter in 1982.
Forty-two years later, in 2024, the organization donated $10,000 to the UWO Whitburn Center for Governance and Policy Research.
The grant funded a research project titled “Trust in Elections and the Threat of Political Violence.”
The faculty and graduate students involved with the project held five group sessions across the state, asking people how they felt about the political climate.
Director of the Whitburn Center, Dr. Michael Ford, says they have since provided training sessions to teach people how to deescalate politically charged conversations.
“The whole idea was to give real people practical tools to navigate some of these difficult conversations so that we can help increase trust in elections, increase trust in our democracy and honestly just increase trust in one another here.”
Ford says they held the sessions before the holidays.
“To think that Jimmy Carter in his 100 year life and his lessons and his commitments to decency and democracy is having an impact right here in Wisconsin at dinner tables today is pretty incredible,” Ford says. "We’re very very happy to be a small part of the Carter legacy and this enduring positive impact that he’s had.”
The Carter Center also helped UWO receive an additional $10,000 matching grant and has agreed to continue to fund the project into the future, according to Ford.
