Future Vice President Sarah Palin. Pictures.
Sarah Louise Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the current governor of the U.S. state of Alaska, and is the Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election.
In 2006, Palin was sworn in as the governor of Alaska, becoming the first woman and youngest person to hold the office. Palin was elected to two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996, then won two terms as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002.
In August 2008, Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced he had chosen Palin as his running mate. She is the second female vice presidential candidate representing a major political party.
Palin was born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Sarah Heath (née Sheeran), a school secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track coach. She is of English, Irish, and German ancestry. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. She and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family regularly ran 5K and 10K 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 at the time. She earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play and was the leader of team prayer before games.
In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty contest, then finished second in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and won "Miss Congeniality".
Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College. In 1987, Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science. Palin briefly worked in broadcasting as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations and with her husband in commercial fishing.
She married her high school boyfriend, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988 when she was 24 years old.The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 45 miles (72 km) north of Anchorage. The Palins have two sons (Track, 19, and Trig Paxson Van, four months) and three daughters (Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7) [ages as of August 2008]. Todd Palin has said Track's name came from the interest Sarah's parents had in the sport and the fact that he was born in the sport's season; Bristol was named after Bristol Bay in Alaska, where Todd grew up and where he does commercial fishing; Willow was named after Willow, Alaska; Piper got her name because it is uncommon and "a cool name"; Trig's name is reported to be Norse for "strength", Paxson refers to an area of Alaska, and Van is apparently a humorous reference to the rock band Van Halen.
Palin gave birth to her youngest child, Trig, on April 18, 2008, while in office as governor. Testing early in pregnancy revealed the fetus had Down's syndrome. Palin said she was sad at first but they now feel blessed that God chose them. Though she announced that she was pregnant only during the start of her third trimester and one month before Trig was born, her pregnancy is reported to have surprised Alaskans, including her staff.After her water broke, on the day of Trig's delivery, Palin delivered a keynote address in Texas and then flew 8 hours to Alaska. She and her husband drove a further 50 minutes to Mat-Su Valley Regional Medical Center, where she gave birth seven hours later. Palin returned to office quickly, just three days after giving birth to Trig.Palin's decision to have the baby has been applauded by the pro-life community.
Track enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 11, 2007, subsequently joining an infantry brigade, and Palin has said he will be deployed to Iraq on September 11, 2008.