Jimmy Carter touched a lot of lives, but none quite like South Carolina’s own Jimmy Baker of Okatie.
When Baker heard of the former president’s death at 100 on Dec. 29, he said, “It kind of gave me a strange feeling. It was just a very reflective day.”
It made him reflect anew about Saturday, March 5, 1977, when his life changed in an instant. That afternoon, his father spoke from his home in Ridgeland to the new president of the United States in a national radio call-in show hosted by Walter Cronkite, and then his father collapsed and died of a heart attack.
The Rev. James E. Baker Sr., 56, was the new pastor at the rural Robertville Baptist Church, and one of just 42 people to get through to President Carter among more than 9 million callers during a two-hour program that day. Baker Sr. urged the president to protect consumers against corporate cheats. Suddenly, he was gone and it was a major news story…