| January 19, 2025
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
Gloria Carter Spann Loved Motorcycling
By Kent Taylor
A full century of life and service from a good and decent man came to an end last week [December 29, 2024], as President Jimmy Carter was laid to rest at his home in Plains, Georgia, next to Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years. Not far from the Carter home is the family cemetery plot where other members of the Carter family are buried, including Christian evangelist sister Ruth Carter Stapleton and fun-loving brother Billy “Billy Beer” Carter. A soul-saving sister and a beer-bottling brother (who once urinated on an airport runway, in full view of the White House press corps); the Carter clan was an interesting and diverse family, one that provided plenty of fodder for 1970s comedians.
Gloria Carter Spann poses next to a Harley-Davidson for photo for an interview in Cycle News in 1977.
Also interred in that same cemetery is Carter’s younger sister, Gloria Carter Spann. Carter Spann inherited both the laudable as well as some of the more amusing character traits of her siblings. But unique to this Carter child was a love of motorcycling, and following the election of her brother to the presidency, Cycle News’ Gary Van Voorhis visited the president’s sister and her husband Walter at their Plains, Georgia, home for a story published in our January 12, 1977, issue.
At the time of the printing, Carter was actually still president-elect; the inauguration would not take place for another eight days. Regardless, the first sister was already wary of the news media and expressed her concern to Van Voorhis. Even though her brother was soon to be sworn in as the leader of one of the most powerful nations on the planet, Gloria Carter Spann was most concerned about what this kind of fame would mean for her two-wheeled passion!
“We [Carter and husband, Walter], don’t want our pictures all over the place,” she told CN “because…then we won’t be able to go riding anymore without being hassled. To…our riding friends…we’re just plain Walter and Gloria, and we’d really like to keep it that way.”
Humility and a stubborn refusal to toot one’s own horn of self-importance are Carter family traits that weren’t passed along solely to the 39th president. Though she kept it to herself that day, Gloria Carter had a story to tell, a story of heartache and even physical pain, inflicted by her first husband. That marriage was annulled, but the son that was born from that union lived a life of chronic mental illness, often disappearing for days at a time, causing his mother a unique form of angst that cannot be known, except by other parents who have experienced this same sort of frightening grief. The dysfunction in his life would stretch on for decades and Gloria did not even see her son in person for the final 21 years of her life.
Enter Walter Guy Spann, Gloria’s second (and final) husband, a farmer whom she married in 1950. Spann, who was sporting brand-spankin’ new bib overalls for the CN visit, was happy to show off his own Harley-Davidson to the CN crew, though he declined to be photographed. “Nope,” he said, “no pictures.” When a hard-working, Harley-riding farmer in his OshKosh (by gosh) overalls says no, it is likely that Van Voorhis, a skilled shooter, did not ask again.
In early ’77, Gloria Carter was the owner of a bright orange Honda 500, adorned with butterflies on the fuel tank and a peace sign incorporated into the sissybar, a decorative statement that elicited a “damned commie” putdown from an apparent hater of peace. She would later ride her own Harley-Davidson, and she and Walter made regular trips to Daytona.
Like her brother, she was not timid about standing up for her beliefs. Carter attended numerous events to speak out against helmet laws and once confronted a park administrator about his “no motorcycles allowed” sign. The rule maker assured her that she and Walter would be welcomed; the sign, he said, was for “those other riders,” which Gloria interpreted as riders who wore “colors.” Ne’er-do-wells, who, of course, are advertising their nefariousness with club gear. Gloria responded by returning to the park, fully attired in “colors” of her own, and soon after, all discriminatory signs were removed from the park grounds.
Exclusion, discrimination and segregation weren’t going to be tolerated by the Carter siblings, whether it involved something not so serious, i.e., motorcycling jackets or, something of greater importance—say, the color of one’s skin. In 1964, Carter stepped away from the Baptist Church she had been attending when the church voted against lifting its ban on allowing Blacks to worship.
Gloria and Walter extended their kindness to all motorcyclists. Riders passing through the area were invited to bunk in the couple’s farmhouse; Walter even built a four-holer (that’s an outhouse, for you peace-loving, commie city folk) for their riding guests.
A caricature of President Jimmy Carter made the cover of Cycle News in 1978, when the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) threatened to ban off-road vehicles on public lands.
As president, Jimmy Carter had a somewhat complicated relationship with the motorcycle industry, with Cycle News reporting that the Carter administration was hellbent on banishing mean motor scooters from some public lands, including the desert. But there was no doubting his sister’s love for the sport. She was one of the first women to be inducted into Harley-Davidson’s 100,000 Mile Club and she was also named Most Outstanding Female Motorcyclist in 1978. After losing her battle with pancreatic cancer in 1990, Gloria Carter Spann was buried in Plains, with Easyriders magazine reporting that the backfilling of the grave was done by “bikers.” “Missed by all who knew her,” her tombstone reads, “She rides in Harley Heaven.” CN
