Atlanta ? As he approaches 80, Jimmy Carter could be enjoying retirement — teaching Sunday school, relaxing with family and reflecting on a life that’s taken him from the peanut fields of Plains, Ga., to the White House and back.

Instead, Carter continues to use his status as a former president to promote peace, health and voting initiatives across the globe at a sometimes startling pace for his age.

“I have been blessed by graduating from the White House at an early age,” Carter, who left the presidency at 56, told The Associated Press. “Enough so that I could use the prestige and fame and experience from being president of the greatest nation in the world to have access to leaders and understand the problems that they face.”

‘Mini-United Nations’

The majority of the work that Carter does is through the Carter Center — a combination of a presidential library and a “mini-United Nations” he and his wife founded in 1982 on a wooded patch of land in Atlanta.

Carter, whose 80th birthday is Friday, won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago. He has remained active on other fronts as well, from his woodworking shop in Plains to the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Witness his schedule for this year:

Carter traveled to Ghana, Togo and Mali in February as part of an effort to eradicate Guinea worm, a painful disease that has ravaged parts of Africa since Biblical times.

He spent a week in June in rural Alabama and Georgia helping build houses with Habitat for Humanity, an annual tradition he plans to take to Mexico next year.

In July, he joined Carter Center staff in Indonesia to monitor that nation’s first round of elections, followed by a vacation in the Galapagos Islands.

He traveled to Venezuela in May and August for more election monitoring.

Last month, he spoke at his party’s national convention in Boston.

Even time for hobbies

And throughout the year, he continued to teach Sunday school in Plains and lectured at least once a month at Atlanta’s Emory University, where he has been on the faculty since leaving the White House.

He published his 19th book, “Sharing Good Times,” late last year and spent much of this year working on a sequel to “The Hornet’s Nest,” a novel of historical fiction set during the Revolutionary War.

At the same time, he continued to make time for hobbies that include woodworking and oil painting.

“President Carter keeps a schedule that would wear out much younger men and women,” said Steven Hochman, director of research for The Carter Center.

What helps him keep up such a pace age 79, Carter says, is that it doesn’t feel like work.

“The bottom line is that it’s an enjoyable thing,” he said. “Nothing that I do is sacrificial.”

Micro-manager

Since his days as Georgia’s governor from 1971 to 1975, some observers have called Carter a micro-manager. He says his later years have taught him to delegate day-to-day duties to others.

“That’s one of the lessons you learn with advancing age,” he said. “No matter how intense your commitment is to a profession or your current duties, there’s always time to expand your life, to stretch your heart and mind and to have things that are much more enjoyable in your life.”

One would have to go back to William Howard Taft to find another American president whose post-presidency years were as busy, said University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock. Taft, who spent four uneasy years in the White House from 1908 to 1912, went on to become chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Most other presidents “once they left the White House, pretty much withdrew,” Bullock said. “They either retired altogether or at least dropped out of the limelight.”

Not bolstering image

Carter’s harshest critics have called his post-presidency work a bid to redeem a failed presidency.

Carter has described his overwhelming defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980 as a personal low. Massive inflation, spiraling gas prices and a demoralizing hostage crisis in Iran left the public sour toward the soft-spoken Georgian and ready for Reagan’s “Morning in America” message.

Carter says his work today is not about bolstering his image.

“If I was primarily interested in a legacy, why would I be in the most remote villages in the world, where there are not any news reporters or television cameras or photographers?” he said. “That is kind of a moot question for me.”

He also vigorously defends his tenure in the White House.

He helped broker a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel at Camp David, normalized diplomatic relations with China, and signed the SALT II arms-control treaty with the Soviet Union.

“I don’t really feel that my legacy needs polishing,” Carter said. “We kept our nation at peace, we promoted human rights, we increased the size of our national parks, we tripled the size of our wilderness areas. There wasn’t any scandal in our government.”

“We had a good administration,” he said.

Even opponents of Carter’s politics largely celebrate his post-White House work. And in the nations where the Carter Center works to combat disease, broker peace and ensure fair elections, the former president’s image has reached almost mythic proportions.

A lot of Jimmy Carters

Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, recounted how her husband was named an honorary chieftain in one African village they visited. Another granted the couple a patch of land and named Carter a king.

And, Mrs. Carter said, new parents in those areas frequently grant Carter a more personal honor, naming their children after the 39th president.

“We find a lot of Jimmy Carters in the countries that we go to,” she said.