PLAINS, Ga. — Michael Dominick got the call last week that the city’s “smiling peanut” statue that sits on Georgia Highway 45 heading into Plains’ downtown needed to be spruced up.
Every few years for the past two decades, Dominick said he has been tasked with putting a fresh coat of paint on the 13-foot-tall peanut, which was made out of hard Styrofoam in 1976 as part of former President Jimmy Carter’s campaign — and bears his signature smile. The last time he painted the statue was in 2019.
“Mr. Jimmy, he doesn’t like that it’s got the smile on it,” Dominick said Sunday as painted the peanut, in the shade of “peanut.”
