A Potential 'First'

It has been brought to my attention that, if Sarah Palin is elected in November, she will become the first vice president who ever won a beauty pageant.

Obviously, that has nothing to do with her qualifications (or lack thereof) to be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

But, for the record, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant in 1984, which entitled her to compete for the title of Miss Alaska. She finished second and received a college scholarship.

Palin earned a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho (she was born in Idaho, but her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant), and she worked for awhile as a sports reporter.

She would have been about 20 when she competed for Miss Alaska, so I presume she was enrolled at the University of Idaho at the time that she won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant.

And, while I know nothing of her family's financial situation at the time, it's possible that scholarship may have been what she needed to pay for the completion of her degree work.

She also worked for awhile in commercial fishing with her husband. I think that would be yet another first — we've had nearly four dozen vice presidents in our history, but I don't believe any of them ever worked as commercial fishermen.

Prior to her election as governor, Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla, the town where she was a beauty queen.

I found a picture of her from her beauty pageant days, and you can see it on the right.

Except for the absence of pigtails, doesn't she look like Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island?"