Sarah Palin Born on February 11, 1964 in Sandpoint, Idaho, Governor Sarah Palin moved to Alaska as an infant when her parents went there to teach in Skagway. As a high schooler, she attended Wasilla High School and played on the girls’ basketball team. In 1984, she won the Miss Wasilla Pageant and then placed third in the Miss Alaska Pageant, winning a scholarship and the Miss Congeniality award. Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College in Hawaii and North Idaho College in Idaho before receiving a degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987. During 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska. She married her husband Todd Palin in 1988. They have five children, Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig, who was born in the spring of 2008. Palin served on the Wasilla City Council in Alaska from 1992 to 1996. At the time, Wasilla had a population of about 5,000. She was then elected mayor of Wasilla twice, serving from 1996 to 2002, after which she ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Alaska. Then-Govenor Frank Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which she chaired from 2003 to 2004 while also serving as Ethics Supervisor. She subsequently resigned in 2004 in protest over the “lack of ethics” of her Republican colleagues. In 2006, Palin defeated Governor Murkowski in the Republican primary and then beat former governor Tony Knowles in the general election, becoming the first woman and the youngest governor in Alaskan history. Palin is a self-described “hockey mom,” at least prior to her governorship. She enjoys hunting moose and is a strong supporter of gun rights. She is also pro-life and generally a social and fiscal conservative. Although she was a member of a Pentecostal church for much of her life, she has belonged to the non-denominational Wasilla Bible Church since 2002. On August 29, 2008, Senator John McCain announced in Dayton, Ohio that Sarah Palin would be his running mate. Compiled by Kimberly Bellows Official Campaign Website for McCain-Palin: http://www.johnmccain.com/
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