Big bash as Jimmy turns 100

PLAINS: HOMETOWN HERO CARTER BECOMES ONLY US LEADER TO HIT CENTENNIAL MARK. Planned to go into hospice care, but defies expectations.

Plains, Georgia, celebrated Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday yesterday, when its home town hero became the only US president to reach the centennial mark.

Carter's longevity - he announced he was going into hospice care more than 19 months ago - has defied all expectations.

The former peanut farmer and onetime Georgia governor, known for a strong sense of modest decency, returned post-presidency to the rural hamlet - with a population of approximately 600 - and has remained a steady and celebrated presence there since.

No longer regularly appearing in public - his last trip out was to see Independence Day fireworks in July the Democratic ex-president was to spend his birthday in the home he and his late wife Rosalynn built in Plains in the '60s.

It was to include a lunch with about 20 members of his extended family, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"We are thrilled that the president from this little town is going to be the only president to ever live to be 100 years old," said Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the National Park Service's Jimmy Carter historical site and longtime family friend.

She spoke from Plains High School, where Carter graduated in 1941 and which now serves as the visitors' centre for the national park that features sites from his early life, such as the nearby peanut farm where he grew up.