WHEELING – Former West Virginia state Sen. Jeff Kessler crossed paths with former President Jimmy Carter a few times over the decades, and each time he came away believing Carter to be “a good human being.”

“A lot of people sell Bibles and profess to live by it, but he was a walking, living example of someone living by the tenants of the Bible,” Kessler said of the 39th president.

Carter died last week at the age of 100.

The first time Kessler met Carter — albeit briefly — was in 1977 when Carter was president and Kessler was a student at the former West Liberty State College who was in Charleston at the state Legislature as a Frasure-Singleton intern.

Carter and the secret service agents who accompanied him made a visit to the West Virginia Capitol Building, and they walked up the curved steps in the rotunda leading from the main floor to the legislative chambers on the second floor.

Kessler said he was dressed in a blue suit, and blended right in with the secret service as he folded in behind them to also walk up the steps. He remembers getting to within 15 feet of the president before one of the agents asked him who he was and what he was doing.

“They told me, ‘You can’t get this close to the president.’ The president overheard them talking to me, and came over and shook my hand,” Kessler continued. “That was the first time I ever met a president.”

It was more than three decades later when Kessler was serving in the West Virginia Senate and he and a few legislative colleagues were invited to a dinner at Carter’s home in Georgia.

Kessler remembers he wasn’t able to make the dinner as his youngest son, Griffin, was born at about the same time.

Carter, nevertheless, called Kessler at his home to extend his congratulations.

“I think I was changing a diaper or something,” Kessler said. “We talked for 15 minutes.

“He was a very gracious and a wonderful man.

“He was a great president and a better human being. And he did things post-presidency to serve mankind.”

One of Kessler’s staffers while he was in the Senate, Steve McElroy, was a family friend of the Carters. After learning McElroy was going to visit Carter for his 90th birthday, Kessler sent with him to Carter a blue and gold West Virginia University sweatshirt as a present.

Carter later called to thank Kessler, who at the time was attending a Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC Park.

When Kessler told him where he was, Carter recounted a game he particularly enjoyed watching between the Pirates and his favorite Atlanta Braves when Syd Bream slid across home plate to win the National League championship against the Pirates.