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McCain's Pick Known As A 'Barracuda'

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The Washington Post

Published: August 30, 2008

Updated: 08/30/2008 12:25 am

WASHINGTON - She has been known, at times, as "Sarah Barracuda."

It began with her ferocity on the high school basketball court. As co-captain her senior year, Sarah Palin was a point guard who made the final free throw that won the Wasilla Warriors their first state championship.

A decade later, the nickname resurfaced when she was a 28-year-old political novice on the Wasilla City Council. She turned on a veteran council member who had coaxed her to run for office, blocking a bill that would have steered business to his garbage-hauling firm.

The moniker was revived once again in 2003, when Alaska's governor, whom she would later unseat, appointed her to a state oil-and-gas commission. As a brand-new member, she challenged the ethics of the panel's leader, the chairman of state's Republican Party, forcing him ultimately to resign.

Since long before she became Alaska's youngest - and first female - governor 20 months ago, Sarah Louise Heath Palin has been making her mark as an unlikely upstart. Friday, she did it again, accepting Sen. John McCain's surprise offer to be his running mate.

Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five who hunts caribou and was once a beauty queen, rose to the statehouse by challenging the corruption that has become endemic in Alaska, even if it meant taking on the Republican establishment, including the former governor and the state's congressional delegation.

Although her resume does not fit the mold of most vice presidential nominees, her acts of dissidence appear to have endeared her to McCain, who regards himself as an independent-minded Republican.

Her evangelical Christian faith - she believes in creationism and is adamantly opposed to abortion - may help him court skeptical social conservatives. And the fact that her eldest son joined the Army and is leaving soon for Iraq reinforces McCain's own military heroism.

Born in Idaho, Palin became an Alaskan as an infant when her parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, hauled their young family up the Alaskan Highway in search of adventure. Her father was a science teacher and her mother became a school secretary. The family would go on camping trips to hunt moose, bear and wild sheep.

Even today, Palin fishes for salmon in Bristol Bay.

Palin entered the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant and won, playing the flute for her talent. She went on to compete for Miss Alaska and was a runner-up.

She began to date Todd Palin, a part Yup'ik Eskimo, when he transferred to Wasilla's high school to play basketball. She worked as a television sportscaster and weather reporter and was 28 when she set her sights on the Wasilla City Council.
SARAH PALIN
AGE: 44

EXPERIENCE: Alaska governor since December 2006; unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2002; chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2003-04; served two terms as Wasilla mayor and two terms on city council.

EDUCATION: Graduated University of Idaho, 1987, journalism.

FAMILY: Husband, Todd; five children.

BUSINESS: Worked as sports reporter for two Anchorage television stations; owned with her husband a snowmobile, watercraft, ATV business from 1994-97. Husband is a North Slope oil field worker.

The Associated Press

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