Former President Jimmy Carter is being honored with the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation made the announcement Monday at an event at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington D.C. In a video message recorded earlier in Atlanta, Carter noted that he shared “mutual respect” for Ford and an “intense personal friendship.”
Ford was a congressman from Grand Rapids, Michigan, before becoming vice president and then president. He died in 2006. Steven Ford said in a statement that his father and Carter, a former Georgia governor, “illustrated to the nation that politics can be handled with dignity, class and respect.”
Past recipients of the medal include former President George H.W. Bush in 2016 and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 2010.