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 legislator 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.

Though fearless in choosing the difficult outsider's path in politics, she remains relatively untested as a campaigner, a politician and as a two-year governor. And even as she drew increasing attention nationally as a potential vice presidential nominee in recent months, she has come under withering criticism at home from business-minded Republicans who consider her a misguided populist and an intellectual lightweight.

In one-on-one settings, her relaxed, no-bull manner has contributed to her popularity - in a state of 670,000 residents, where such contacts are not only possible but essential for political success. And voters here have also warmed to the outlines of her all-Alaskan biography.

She was born in Idaho and came to Alaska when she was three 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 local teacher and coach. One of her most formative experiences, she has said, was leading 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 also 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 moosemeat 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 member of the United Steelworkers, and an Alaska Native. Todd's grandmother grew up in a traditional Yup'ik Eskimo house in Bristol Bay and accompanied Sarah in her race for governor as she sought support from Alaska Native voters. Sarah Palin has joined her family fishing a commercial setnet site on the Nushagak River in Bristol Bay every summer.

Todd Palin has worked 20 years in a job on Alaska's North Slope for BP, where he has continued to work as a production operator. He is also a four-time winner of the Iron Dog snowmachine race from Anchorage to Nome and back along the Iditarod Trail. Since the election, Todd has remained in the background as "first dude," in an expression his wife sometimes uses.

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