President Jimmy Carter was an honorable man whose second act in life — after one term in the White House — has served as an example for us all for more than 40 years.

It remains to be seen if some of his followers as POTUS will live up to Carter’s post-political career and life.

Can you imagine George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Joe Biden teaching Sunday school or rolling up their sleeves to build homes for Habitat for Humanity?

Neither can we.

But Carter did just that after Ronald Reagan’s decisive victory in 1980 made the Plains, Georgia, native a one-term president.

Carter took office in post-Watergate America, when the country needed less of a politician and more of a man its citizens could trust. The U.S. got that in the earnest Carter, an Annapolis graduate and former Navy officer.

In another time, Carter’s presidency might be remembered differently, but America was already hurting by the time he defeated Gerald Ford. The 1973 Arab oil embargo and the death spiral of the U.S. steel industry had already sucked America into an economic and social malaise, which Carter eventually acknowledged in his famous — and perhaps infamous — July 15, 1979 speech.

In it, Carter said America faced a “crisis of confidence” and “national malaise.” Journalists at the time took Carter’s message as an admission that he was in trouble because of the energy crisis, inflation and the loss of more than 100,000 steel industry jobs.

Remember, Black Monday in Youngstown — Sept. 19, 1977 — occurred on his watch. Some 5,000 steel workers lost their jobs that day.

Eventually there was a move here in the Mahoning Valley to push for steelworkers’ ownership of the Campbell Works, and the Carter administration promised millions in federal loan guarantees to support the plan hatched by workers, families and religious and community leaders.

The goal was to take over the old mill and reopen it under worker-community ownership with the latest new technology. Some 4,000 workers would have been rehired. The catch phrase locally was, “Save Youngstown, Save The Nation.”

But national union leaders were against the plan and after the 1978 midterm elections, the Carter administration withdrew the loan promises under pressure from steel industry lobbyists and government officials. That was the beginning of what became the Rust Belt.

Youngstown, Warren and the entire region have struggled ever since.

If Carter had any hope of reelection, it was probably dashed when Iran took 53 U.S. diplomats and citizens hostage on Nov. 4, 1979, and held them for 444 days. Carter signed off on an ill-fated rescue attempt on April 24, 1980. One Iranian civilian was killed in the attempt and eight U.S. servicemen died accidentally when a helicopter crashed into a transport aircraft.

Iran finally released the hostages on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Reagan was inaugurated after his decisive victory over Carter in the 1980 election.

Who knows what might have happened if Carter had been more decisive in the face of growing economic woes early in his term and in acting to save all those Youngstown steel jobs, or if his attempt to end the hostage crisis had worked.

Often overlooked was perhaps one of the most successful undertakings by a modern U.S. president, when — in 1978 — he mediated and kept alive peace talks between Egypt and Israel. Carter hosted Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David until the long-time enemy states agreed to a peace deal that is still in place today. Carter should have won the Nobel Peace Prize then, but finally earned it in 2002.

Carter didn’t just ease into retirement nor did he fade from public view after his 1980 election loss. Despite being blamed for much of what went wrong for America in the late 1970s, Carter didn’t walk away into obscurity.

Instead, he jumped into one of the most impactful second acts of anyone who ever occupied the White House or any top political office in the world.

Carter spent years taking up hammers and nails and building homes for those in need with Habitat for Humanity and advocated for the organization long after he could no longer help physically.

Carter also spent decades fighting the existence of Guinea worm, which infects people who drink unclean water. The worms can grow 3 feet long inside the body before breaking out in painful blisters. The disease infected 3.5 million of the world’s poorest people before Carter launched an eradication program in 1986.

According to the Associated Press, the Carter Center trained volunteers who trained villagers to filter water and report infections. The parasite is now on the brink of extinction, with just 13 infections reported last year.

Jimmy Carter rose to the highest U.S. office in the land, but although he held it for only one term, he showed that a man’s impact on his nation and the world can continue long after others determine his political usefulness is no more.

RIP, Mr. President.