Sarah Louise
Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the governor of Alaska
and the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 2008 United
States presidential election.
Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska city council from
1992 to 1996, then won two terms as mayor of Wasilla from 1996
to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor
of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas
Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as
Ethics Supervisor of the commission.
In November 2006, Palin was elected the governor of Alaska,
becoming the first woman and youngest person to hold the
office.[6] She defeated incumbent Republican governor Frank
Murkowski in the Republican primary and former Democratic
governor Tony Knowles in the general election, garnering 48.3%
of the vote to 40.9% for Knowles.
On August 29, 2008, Republican presidential candidate Senator
John McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running
mate. She was nominated at the 2008 Republican National
Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Palin is the second woman
to run for vice president on a major-party ticket and the first
Republican woman to do so.
Early life and education
Palin was born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the third
of four children of Sarah Heath (née Sheeran), a school
secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track
coach. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.[7] As
a child, she would sometimes go moose hunting with her father
before school, and the family regularly ran 5km and 10km races.
Palin attended Wasilla High School in Wasilla, Alaska, where she
was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at
the school, and the point guard and captain of the school's
basketball team. She helped the team win the Alaska small-school
basketball championship in 1982, hitting a critical free throw
in the last seconds of the game, despite having an ankle stress
fracture.[7] She earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because
of her intense play, and was the leader of the team prayer
before games.
In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished
second in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a
college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award. Palin
admits to smoking marijuana as a youth, during the time Alaska
had decriminalized possession, though she says she did not enjoy
it.
Palin spent her first college semester at Hawaii Pacific
College, transferring in 1983 to North Idaho College and then to
the University of Idaho. She attended Matanuska-Susitna College
in Alaska for one term, returning to the University of Idaho to
complete her Bachelor of Science degree in
communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.
In 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV in
Anchorage, Alaska. She also helped in her husband’s family
commercial fishing business. |