The town halls were question-and-answer sessions with rank-and-file voters on topics of their choosing. Under the format, Carter would make brief introductory remarks, then take questions from the floor for about an hour.

Carter’s advisers sought a venue that was reasonably close to Los Angeles International Airport, and was in an area filled with diverse middle-class voters. They hoped to win back voters who had gone with Gerald Ford in 1976. Even though Carter won the general election, Ford won California.

After considering sites from Santa Monica to Long Beach, they decided on North High School, 3620 W. 182nd St., for the Sept. 22 event, which would make him the first sitting U.S. president to visit a Torrance high school.

The North High band immediately began practicing not only “Hail to the Chief,” but also “Georgia on My Mind” and “Sweet Georgia Brown” to play at the event.

School district officials were surprised by the choice of venue. North High, which opened in 1955 in response to the postwar baby boom, was considered the most utilitarian of the city’s four high schools.

Very little had been done to improve the school in the 25 years since it had opened. The school’s gym was anything but fancy, and was among the structures scheduled to be improved under a hard-won $6 million facilities upgrade program.

The town hall came at a key point for Carter.

The incumbent president had just withdrawn from a national debate with his Republican foe, former actor and California Gov. Ronald Reagan, the night before the Torrance appearance, in protest over the participation of third-party candidate John Anderson. The Torrance event was meant to counter criticism that Carter had ducked the debate.

In truth, Carter was in a weakened position in 1980. His inability to free Americans taken hostage by Iran in 1979 made him seem ineffective on foreign policy. A second gas shortage in 1979 had lingering negative economic effects. The U.S. economy had also become beset by “stagflation,” a combination of high unemployment and inflation, and low economic growth.

Carter also had to beat back an attempt by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, to wrest the nomination from him at the Democratic National Convention a month earlier. So a lot was riding on events such as the North High town hall.

Students were dismissed early on Monday, Sept. 22, ahead of the 1 p.m. event. Tickets for the 1,100 seats for Carter’s appearance had been made available to the community through a lottery conducted by the Daily Breeze. Seventy-five North High students were also chosen to attend, along with 25 city employees and 20 additional Torrance officials.

Dignitaries in attendance included Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., former Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally, Rep. Glenn Anderson, Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, state Treasurer Jesse Unruh, and Torrance Mayor James Armstrong and the City Council.

Heavy security accompanied Carter’s motorcade from LAX, including helicopters and police protection. Sharpshooters were in place on nearby rooftops, plainclothes officers were scattered among the attendees and police covered every inch of the campus.

Daily Breeze reporter Rich Connell noted that the event began like a splashy campaign rally — but became more serious with Carter’s opening remarks. The questions from the floor that followed covered a variety of issues and concerns, from the Iranian hostage crisis to taxing Social Security, from fair housing initiatives to Carter’s cancellation of the B-1 bomber program and its effect on the local aerospace industry. He was also asked why he had ducked out on the previous night’s debate.

Attendees from all sides of the political spectrum felt the president gave thoughtfully reasoned answers to their various questions. In a couple of instances in which Carter didn’t know the answer to specific questions, he promised to find out and get back to the questioner.

The whole event ran like clockwork, ending at its scheduled time of 3:25 p.m. Carter worked his way through the throngs of people inside and outside the North High gym. Those without tickets had been allowed to watch the arrival and departure of the president.

Carter’s motorcade left Torrance and headed for the next event on the campaign schedule, a posh Democratic fundraiser in Beverly HIlls that evening.

Carter’s reelection campaign hoped to gain ground against Reagan through appearances such as the one at North High, but the Republican’s home-state strength proved to be too much.

Reagan and his running mate, George H.W. Bush, carried the state by 17 percentage points in the general election, and soundly defeated Carter and his running mate, Walter Mondale, by nine percentage points in the national balloting.

Sources: Daily Breeze archives. Los Angeles Times archives. Wikipedia.