ATLANTA — The first time Paige Alexander shook President Jimmy Carter’s hand, as a 12-year-old touring the White House Rose Garden with her mother, the Atlanta native joked that she never wanted to wash her hand.
So it was surreal that some four decades later Alexander found herself shaking Carter’s hand once again, this time in Plains, Georgia, after she was named chief executive of his nonprofit, The Carter Center.
“As I was leaving and shook his hand I told him that story” about meeting in 1979, Alexander recounted. “He said, ‘It’s COVID. You should wash your hands.’”
