The time Weslaco students were invited to Jimmy Carter’s inauguration

Forty-eight years ago, a group of 32 elementary school students from the Rio Grande Valley were chaperoned by 22 adults as they boarded a plane.

It was Wednesday, Jan. 19, 1977, and a relentless cold continued to blow through the region that day, dipping below freezing at 29 degrees Fahrenheit, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

Hailing from Weslaco, the students were bundled up in heavy coats and knit caps and gloves as they smiled while boarding the Texas International flight.

Consider that whatever cold they braved as they shivered up the airstair that morning wasn’t enough to cool the excited hearts of kids who were about to go on the field trip of a lifetime.

These Mid-Valley students were the nation’s only class to receive an invitation to attend Jimmy Carter’s inauguration as the 39th president of the United States.

The Monitor reported then that the children, who were students of Matie Redman’s social studies class, were to be served lunch inside Texas International’s VIP room after landing at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, and before reboarding en route to Washington.

But for Diana Fuentes-Aguilar, who at the age of 8 was among the students from Weslaco who witnessed Carter’s inauguration, merely flying to the nation’s capital was itself a thrill.

“It was my first airplane ride,” Fuentes-Aguilar, now 56, recalled about her experience. “There were three of us to a room and a chaperone, and our chaperone was Ms. Hailey, who actually was a Monitor reporter.

“We were all just so excited.”

She said the class was invited to the inauguration thanks to letters they had written to the candidates of the 1976 presidential election, Carter and Gerald Ford. But she remembers the class writing Carter’s daughter, Amy Carter, after the election to congratulate her and the family.

Amy Carter herself wrote in response and invited the Weslaco students to the inauguration, Fuentes-Aguilar said.

The pomp and circumstance of an inauguration was difficult for a child to appreciate, she said, but she did recall warm memories that day.

“We remember the snow as second graders,” Fuentes-Aguilar laughed. “We really didn’t understand everything going on, but it was exciting. And (then-U.S. Rep.) Kika De La Garza took us to the capitol. I think we were too busy throwing snowballs at each other, but I do remember seeing (Carter) off in the distance.”

President Jimmy Carter waves to the crowd while walking with his wife Rosalynn and their daughter Amy along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House following his inauguration, Jan. 20, 1977, in Washington. (Suzanne Vlamis/AP Photo)

She learned to appreciate the 39th president later in life; in fact, he became one of her favorite presidents for his work outside of the oval office.

Fuentes-Aguilar, now an attorney, was referring to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s work as a humanitarian and his devotion to Habitat for Humanity, where he dedicated one week per year to volunteering his time. Together, he and his wife First Lady Rosalynn Carter helped build 4,331 homes throughout their lives.

“That’s his legacy,” Fuentes-Aguilar said of Carter, who died at 100 on Dec. 29, just over a year after he lost Rosalynn at age 96.

During a time of political upheaval following the Nixon and Ford administrations and the damage Watergate did to the American conscientiousness, Carter spoke in his inaugural address on Thursday, Jan. 20, 1977, and before Fuentes-Aguilar and Mrs. Redman’s social studies class, of believing in each other and the idea of America once again.

“Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together in the right,” Carter said shortly after taking the oath of office. “The American dream endures. We must once again have full faith in our country — and in one another. I believe America can be better. We can be even stronger than before.”

Fuentes-Aguilar said Wednesday, a day before he is to be buried next to his beloved wife, that while she doesn’t remember Carter’s words that day, she remembers the mark he left on the world.

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