Sarah Palin was a hockey mom, small-town mayor and rising young Republican star in Alaska in 2003 when she ran afoul of her party's establishment over ethics reform and was cast into the political wilderness.
But she came charging back as an ethics crusader to win the governor's office in 2006 (including a landslide primary victory over the incumbent Republican governor) and has remained one of the most popular local politicians in America even as she continued to take on such powerful figures as the oil companies and the leaders of her own state party.
Palin, 44, has been the Joan of Arc of Alaska politics, charging into battle against long odds on such big local issues as oil taxes and construction of a natural gas pipeline only to see her opposition crumble. Days after her 2006 primary victory, an FBI investigation into political corruption involving the oil industry and Republican legislators burst into view with surprise raids of legislative offices. As criminal indictments and convictions followed, Palin's outsider status helped her maintain consistently sky-high approval ratings.
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She was born in Idaho and came to Alaska when she was 3 months old. She grew up in the town of Wasilla, a now-sprawling small town an hour north of Anchorage, where her father, Chuck Heath, was a teacher and coach. One of her most formative experiences, she has said, was helping to lead her high school basketball team to the 1982 state championship. Palin played point guard and got the nickname from her teammates of Sarah Barracuda.
Palin went on to study journalism and political science in college, graduating form the University of Idaho in 1987. Along the way she competed in the Miss Alaska contest after being chosen Miss Wasilla 1984. In the Wasilla contest, she played the flute and won the title of Miss Congeniality.
She grew up hunting with her father, whose living room wall is densely populated with trophies and antlers. Her favorite meal, she said during her gubernatorial race, is moose meat stew after a day of snowmachining.
She eloped in 1988 with her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin, who expands the family biography considerably. He is a commercial fisherman, an oil field worker, a
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