'Hockey mom' becomes surprise GOP VP pick

After graduating from Wasilla high school as a basketball star, Sarah Palin is encouraged by her parents to go to college. But she has to pull her own weight.

BRUCE: A children of working-class parents, we were going to pay our own ways through college.  That was expected. 

Sarah trades in her fishing waders for a tiara and enters a beauty pageant.

BRUCE: She had seen that some of these beauty scholarship pageants—has some pretty good prize money.

Sarah is crowned Miss Wasilla, and then competes for a bigger title: Miss Alaska.

ADELE MORGAN, FRIEND:I went to the Miss Alaska Pageant.  I thought, I was so proud of her, especially in the interview.  And because she was so down-to-earth, and she answered the questions with humor.  And I said, “You know, she’s gonna go far.”

She comes in first runner up and, wins Miss Congeniality.

PALIN: And I got that title of Miss Congeniality out of my system back then.  It wasn’t really my thing.  I was never really comfortable with it. But it paid for some college though.

Sarah and some Alaskan friends head to Hawaii for college but they don’t last long.

JOHNSON: She and three other friends decided that, as Alaska kids, what better place to go to college than Hawaii, where there was sun and sunshine and beach.  But they got homesick for Alaska.  And they got homesick for the seasons, they transferred to Idaho from there.

She transfers colleges six times before graduating in 1987 from the University of  Idaho with a major in journalism and a minor in political science.

Sarah soon puts her college degree to use, landing a job at the local TV station in Anchorage

She doesn’t win everyone over right away.

JOHNSON: The first time Sarah worked at KTUU television as a sportscaster, she was substituting for another a male anchor. And she had a comment that came into the station after she had made her appearance on TV, as well.  “Looks like they got rid of the old guy and they put in a bimbo.”  So, she just laughed at that.  You know being young and being inexperienced has always been leveled at her at a criticism, and she’s always taken it in stride.

Her family and friends see early signs of a rising star.

BRUCE: But she was a lot smoother than I would have expected.  This girl could handle herself on camera.

While working at the station, Sarah lives with her sister Heather in Anchorage and continues dating her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin.

BOB LESTER, Friend: If you wanted a picture to put in the dictionary under Alaska guy there you’d have it: Todd Palin, he’s a tough guy,

Todd is a commercial fisherman and Sarah spends hours out in his boat, helping haul in hundreds of pounds of salmon, something they still do.

JOHNSON: Todd and Sarah both share a love for the outdoors.  And they share a love for the Alaskan way of life.  And they commercial fish together, every summer.

About a year after graduating from college Sarah and Todd  have big news, Sarah Heath has become Sarah Palin.

BRUCE: They just said, “This is the best time for us as a couple.”  And, it was sweet.  They went to a courthouse and eloped.  And wrote us all a lovely note that they had done that. 

On August 29^th, 1988, Todd and Sarah elope at this courthouse in Palmer, Alaska. All alone they are told they need witnesses.

JOHNSON: They hadn’t thought of that ahead of time. They walked across the street to the local nursing home and asked if there were a couple of folks that would be interested in standing up for them at the wedding.  So, these elderly people, one in a walker, walked over across the street to the courthouse, and stood up for them at their at their wedding.

Todd and Sarah move to Wasilla, and eight months after their wedding, their first child, a boy named track, is born. Bristol, a girl, soon follows in 1990.

Todd races snowmobiles in his spare time and works on an oil field called the North Slope that supplies the trans-Alaska pipeline.

JOHNSON: His schedule was two weeks on, two weeks off.  Sarah was a stay-at-home mom for awhile. But they were just, you know, an ordinary household, an ordinary family trying to get by.

Sarah and Todd raise their family in typical Alaskan fashion.

MORGAN: It was a neat family experience too.  You know, camping and hunting, and then coming home and taking care of the moose meat.  We ground our hamburger ourselves, and we wrapped it ourselves.  We didn’t just take it to the butcher.

Sarah joins the PTA, and bonds with other mothers in town. It’s an exercise class that leads to her career in politics.

JOHNSON: She also got involved in a step aerobics class that’s where she met some key people that would be part of her political future.

The Wasilla mayor and the town’s police chief also attend the aerobics class. Little did they know they were witnessing the birth of a political superstar.

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