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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.[6] Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.[6] As a child, she would sometimes go moose hunting with her father 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.[6] 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.[6] 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 (playing the flute),[7][8] then finished second in the Miss Alaska pageant,[9] at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award.
Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College—now known as Hawaii Pacific University—in Honolulu for a semester in 1982, majoring in Business Administration. She transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College.[10] In 1987,[11] Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science.
In 1988, she worked briefly as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska.[14] She also helped out in her husband’s family commercial fishing business.
Early political career
Wasilla is a city of 6,715 located 42 miles north of the port of city of Anchorage. Palin began her political career in 1992, when she ran for a three-year term on the Wasilla city council, supporting a controversial new sales tax and advocating "a safer, more progressive Wasilla." She won, and won re-election to a second three-year term in the 1995 election.
In 1996, Palin challenged and defeated incumbent John Stein for the non-partisan office of mayor, a full-time, $68,000-a-year job.[17] In the campaign, she criticized Stein for what she called wasteful spending and high taxes,[6] and highlighted her pro-life stance, her church work, and her membership in the National Rifle Association.
In October 1996, she asked the Wasilla police chief, librarian, public works director and finance director to resign, and she instituted a policy requiring department heads to get her approval before talking to reporters.[19] In January 1997, Palin fired the police chief and the town librarian. Palin said in a letter that she wanted a change because she believed the two did not fully support her administration.[21] The chief filed a lawsuit; but a court dismissed it, finding that Palin had the right to fire city employees for political reasons. According to Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who observed City Council, Palin found certain book titles "somehow morally or socially objectionable." Palin rehired the librarian after town residents made a strong show of support.
As mayor, Palin reduced the mayoral salary, reduced property taxes by 40 percent. She also increased the city sales tax to pay for a new indoor ice rink and sports complex, which eventually went over budget due to an eminent domain lawsuit. At this time, state Republican leaders began grooming her for higher office. She ran for re-election against Stein in 1999 and was returned to office, getting over three times as many votes as he. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
During her second three-year term as mayor, Palin hired the Anchorage-based lobbying firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh to lobby for federal money for Wasilla. The effort was led by Steven Silver, a former chief of staff for Senator Ted Stevens, and it secured nearly $27 million in earmarked funds. The earmarks included $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project linking Wasilla and the ski resort community of Girdwood.
In 2002, term limits prevented Palin from running for a third term as mayor. Her stepmother-in-law, Faye Palin, ran for the office but lost the election to Dianne Keller after Sarah Palin endorsed Keller, her cousin.
Activities from 2002 to 2005
In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a five-way race in the Republican primary.
After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, he considered appointing Palin to replace him in the Senate, but instead chose his daughter, Alaska state representative Lisa Murkowski.
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she chaired the Commission from 2003 to 2004, and also served as Ethics Supervisor.[34] Palin resigned in January 2004 in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members.
After resigning, Palin filed formal complaints against the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes. She accused Ruedrich, one of her fellow commissioners, of doing work for the party on public time and working closely with a company he was supposed to be regulating. Ruedrich and Renkes both resigned and Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.
From 2003 to June 2005, Palin served as one of three directors of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in Alaska.
Governor of Alaska
In 2006, running on a clean-government platform, Palin defeated then-Governor Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary.[40] Her running mate was State Senator Sean Parnell. Senator Stevens made a last-moment endorsement and filmed a TV commercial together with Palin for the gubernatorial campaign.
In August, she declared that education, public safety, and transportation would be the three cornerstones of her administration. Despite spending less than her Democratic opponent, she won the gubernatorial election in November, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles 48.3 percent to 40.9 percent.
Palin became Alaska's first female governor and, at 42, the youngest in Alaskan history. She is the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood and the first governor not inaugurated in Juneau; she chose to have the ceremony held in Fairbanks instead. She took office on December 4, 2006 and has maintained an elevated approval rating throughout her term.
She sometimes broke with the state Republican establishment. For example, she endorsed Parnell's bid to unseat the state's longtime at-large U.S. Congressman, Don Young. Palin also publicly challenged Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the ongoing federal investigation into his financial dealings.
Shortly before his July 2008 indictment, she held a joint news conference with Stevens, described by The Washington Post as being held "to make clear she had not abandoned him politically."
